People v. Superior Court (Johannes)

J.In 1995, the Legislature enacted the Sexually Violent Predators Act. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.) Under the Act, when someone convicted of specified “ ‘[s]exually violent offense[s]’ [including Penal Code section 288, subdivision (a)] . . . committed by force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the victim or another person” (§ 6600, subd. (b), italics added) against two or more victims completes his prison sentence and becomes eligible for parole, the People can petition the trial court to have the convict declared a sexually violent predator if he “has a diagnosed mental disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety of others in that it is likely that he . . . will engage in sexually violent criminal behavior.” (§ 6600, subd. (a).)

If so, “the person shall be committed for two years to ... the State Department of Mental Health for appropriate treatment and confinement in a secure facility . . . , and the person shall not be kept in actual custody longer than two years unless a subsequent extended commitment is obtained from the court incident to the filing of a new petition for commitment under [the…