Page:United States v. Texas (2023).pdf/38

2 too broadly. Consider the facts. The “mother of an illegitimate child” sued in federal court, “apparently seek[ing] an injunction running against the district attorney forbidding him from declining prosecution” of the child’s father for failure to pay child support. 410 U. S., at 614–616. She objected, on equal protection grounds, to the State’s view that “fathers of illegitimate children” were not within the ambit of the relevant child-neglect statute. Id., at 616.

We agreed that the plaintiff “suffered an injury stemming from the failure of her child’s father to contribute support payments.” Id., at 618. But if the plaintiff “were granted the requested relief, it would result only in the jailing of the child’s father.” Ibid. Needless to say, the prospect that prosecution would lead to child-support payments could, “at best, be termed only speculative.” Ibid. For this reason, we held that the plaintiff lacked standing. Only then, after resolving the standing question on redressability grounds, did we add that “a private citizen lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another.” Id., at 619. In short, we denied standing in Linda R. S. because it was speculative that the plaintiff’s requested relief would redress her asserted injury, not because she failed to allege one. See Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U. S. 59, 79, n. 24 (1978).

Viewed properly, Linda R. S. simply represents a specific application of the general principle that “when the plaintiff is not himself the object of the government action or inaction he challenges, standing is not precluded, but it is ordinarily ‘substantially more difficult’ to establish” given the causation and redressability issues that may arise. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 562 (1992). That is true for the States here. I see little reason to seize on the case’s bonus discussion of whether “a private citizen” has a “judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another” to establish a broad rule of Article III standing. Linda R. S., 410 U. S., at 619.