252
Syllabus
Washington Supreme Court has held that the Act is civil in nature, designed to incapacitate and to treat, due process requires that the conditions and duration of confinement under the Act bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which persons are committed. E. g., Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U. S. 71, 79. Finally, the Court notes that an action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 is pending against the Center and that the Center operates under an injunction requiring it to take steps to improve confinement conditions. Pp. 265-266.
(c) This case gives the Court no occasion to consider how a confinement scheme's civil nature relates to other constitutional challenges, such as due process, or to consider the extent to which a court may look to actual conditions of confinement and implementation of the statute to determine in the first instance whether a confinement scheme is civil in nature. Whether such a scheme is punitive has been the threshold question for some constitutional challenges. See, e. g., Allen, supra. However, the Court has not squarely addressed the relevance of confinement conditions to a first instance determination, and that question need not be resolved here. Pp. 266-267.
192 F. 3d 870, reversed and remanded.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Souter, J., joined, post, p. 267. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 270. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 274.
Maureen Hart, Senior Assistant Attorney General of Washington, argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs were Christine O. Gregoire, Attorney General, Sarah Blackman Sappington, Assistant Attorney General, David J. W. Hackett, Special Assistant Attorney General, and William Berggren Collins, Senior Assistant Attorney General.
Robert C. Boruchowitz argued the cause for respondent. With him on the briefs were David B. Hirsch, Dennis P. Carroll, and Christine Jackson.*
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the State of Kansas et al. by Carla J. Stovall, Attorney General of Kansas, Stephen R. McAllister, State Solicitor, and Jared S. Maag, Assistant Attorney Gen-
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