Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1717_4f14.pdf
Page Number: 58

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

3 

GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

that a third party does not have “standing to challenge the 
validity  of  a  death  sentence  imposed  on  a  capital  defend-
ant who has elected to forgo his right of appeal”). 
  It’s not hard to see why this Court has refused suits like 
these.  If individuals and groups could invoke the author- 
ity of a federal court to forbid what they dislike for no more 
reason  than  they  dislike  it,  we  would  risk  exceeding  the 
judiciary’s  limited  constitutional  mandate  and  infringing 
on  powers  committed  to  other  branches  of  government.  
Courts would start to look more like legislatures, respond-
ing  to  social  pressures  rather  than  remedying  concrete 
harms,  in  the  process  supplanting  the  right  of  the  people 
and  their  elected  representatives  to  govern  themselves.  
See, e.g., Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U. S. 398, 408 
(2013)  (“The  law  of  Article  III  standing, which  is  built  on 
separation-of-powers  principles,  serves  to  prevent  the 
judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the 
political  branches”);  Warth  v.  Seldin,  422  U. S.  490,  500 
(1975)  (without  standing  requirements  “courts  would  be 
called  upon  to  decide  abstract  questions  of  wide  public 
significance  even  though  other  governmental  institutions 
may be more competent to address the questions”); Hein v. 
Freedom  From  Religion  Foundation,  Inc.,  551  U. S.  587, 
635–636  (2007)  (Scalia,  J.,  concurring  in  judgment)  (“ ‘To 
permit  a  complainant  who  has  no  concrete  injury  to  re-
quire a court to rule on important constitutional issues in 
the  abstract  would  create  the  potential  for  abuse  of  the 
judicial  process,  distort  the  role  of  the  Judiciary  in  its 
relationship to the Executive and the Legislature and open 
the  Judiciary  to  an  arguable  charge  of providing  “govern-
ment by injunction” ’ ”). 
  Proceeding  on  these  principles,  this  Court  has  held 
offense  alone  insufficient  to  convey  standing  in  analo-
gous—and  arguably  more  sympathetic—circumstances.  
Take  Allen  v.  Wright,  468  U. S.  737  (1984),  where  the 
parents of African-American schoolchildren sued to compel