Court Opinion

ID: 9428527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:03.363616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.019599
License: Public Domain

*88Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall and Justice Blackmun join,
dissenting.
In my view, the Court, by mischaracterizing respondents’ alleged injury, improperly invokes Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614 (1973), to deny respondents standing in this civil action brought pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983 and 42 U. S. C. §1985(3) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
Linda R. S. involved a challenge to Texas’ enforcement of Art. 602 of the Texas Penal Code, brought by the mother of an illegitimate child. Article 602 provided in part that “any parent who shall wilfully desert, neglect or refuse to provide for the support and maintenance of his or her child or children under eighteen years of age, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, shall be punished by confinement in the County Jail for not more than two years.” The State construed Art. 602 to apply only to parents of legitimate children, and had accordingly declined to prosecute the father of the appellant’s child despite his refusal to provide support for the child. The appellant sought to enjoin the State’s “discriminatory application” of the statute. Holding that the appellant lacked standing to raise this challenge to the construction of the State’s criminal statute, this Court affirmed the dismissal of the action. The Court reasoned that while the “appellant no doubt suffered an injury stemming from the failure of her child’s father to contribute support payments,” there was no “‘direct’ relationship” between the State’s failure to prosecute the father and the injury sustained. Linda R. S., supra, at 618. Rather, the Court declared, “[t]he prospect that prosecution will, at least in the *89future, result in payment of support can, at best, be termed only speculative.” 410 U. S., at 618.
The Court seeks to bring the present case within the holding of Linda R. S. by suggesting that “[a]s in Linda R. S., there is a questionable nexus between respondents’ injury— the alleged beatings — and the actions of the state officials in which they gave information to a Magistrate prior to issuance of an arrest warrant. ... It is . . . clear that issuance of the arrest warrant in this case would not necessarily lead to a subsequent prosecution.” Ante, at 86-87. The Court’s analysis simply cannot withstand scrutiny. Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, the respondents’ alleged injury — for the purposes of their civil action brought pursuant to §§ 1983 and 1985(3) — is not the “beatings,” but rather the deprivation of their constitutional right of access to the courts, assured by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. They have alleged that petitioners’ conspiratorial acts deprived them of their right to seek an arrest warrant, and thus denied them their constitutional right of access to the courts. Plainly there is a substantial nexus between the alleged injury and petitioners’ acts, thus making Linda R. S. wholly inapposite. If there is a basis for denying respondents standing to bring their civil action, it is not to be found in Linda R. S.
Under the circumstances, plenary review is merited. Accordingly, I dissent.