Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-58_i425.pdf
Page Number: 8

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

The  States  have  not  cited  any  precedent,  history,  or
tradition of courts ordering the Executive Branch to change
its  arrest  or  prosecution  policies  so  that  the  Executive 
Branch makes more arrests or initiates more prosecutions. 
On  the  contrary,  this  Court  has  previously  ruled  that  a 
plaintiff lacks standing to bring such a suit.

The leading precedent is Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 
U. S.  614  (1973).  The  plaintiff  in  that  case  contested  a 
State’s policy of declining to prosecute certain child-support 
violations.  This  Court  decided  that  the  plaintiff  lacked
standing to challenge the State’s policy, reasoning that in
“American  jurisprudence  at  least,”  a  party  “lacks  a 
judicially  cognizable  interest  in  the  prosecution  . . .  of 
another.”  Id., at 619.  The Court concluded that “a citizen 
lacks  standing  to  contest  the  policies  of  the  prosecuting
authority  when  he  himself  is  neither  prosecuted  nor 
threatened with prosecution.”  Ibid. 

to 

judicially  cognizable 

The Court’s Article III holding in Linda R. S. applies to
challenges 
the  Executive  Branch’s  exercise  of 
enforcement discretion over whether to arrest or prosecute. 
See id., at 617, 619; Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U. S. 748, 
760–761, 767, n. 13 (2005); cf. Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 
U. S.  883,  897  (1984)  (citing  Linda  R. S.  principle  in
immigration context and stating that the petitioners there
in  procuring
had  “no 
enforcement  of  the  immigration  laws”  by  the  Executive 
Branch).  And  importantly,  that  Article  III  standing 
principle remains the law today; the States have pointed to 
no case or historical practice holding otherwise.  A “telling
indication  of  the  severe  constitutional  problem”  with  the
States’  assertion  of  standing  to  bring  this  lawsuit  “is  the
lack of historical precedent” supporting it.  Free Enterprise 
Fund  v.  Public  Company  Accounting  Oversight  Bd.,  561 
U. S.  477,  505  (2010)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted); 
see  also  Raines,  521  U. S.,  at  826  (“Not  only  do  appellees 
lack support from precedent, but historical practice appears 

interest