Campbell v. Louisiana, 523 U.S. 392, 9 (1998)

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400

CAMPBELL v. LOUISIANA

Opinion of the Court

The remaining two preconditions to establish third-party standing are satisfied with little trouble. We find no reason why a white defendant would be any less effective as an advocate for excluded grand jurors than for excluded petit jurors. See Powers, supra, at 413-414. The defendant and the excluded grand juror share a common interest in eradicating discrimination from the grand jury selection process, and the defendant has a vital interest in asserting the excluded juror's rights because his conviction may be overturned as a result. See Vasquez, supra, at 264; Rose, supra, at 551; Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282 (1950). The State contends Campbell's connection to "the excluded class of . . . jurors . . . who were not called to serve . . . for the prior 161/2 years is tenuous, at best." Brief for Respondent 22. This argument confuses Campbell's underlying claim with the evidence needed to prove it. To assert the rights of those venirepersons who were excluded from serving on the grand jury in his case, Campbell must prove their exclusion was on account of intentional discrimination. He seeks to do so based on past treatment of similarly situated venire-persons in other cases, see Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482, 494 (1977), but this does not mean he seeks to assert those venirepersons' rights. As a final matter, excluded grand jurors have the same economic disincentives to assert their own rights as do excluded petit jurors. See Powers, supra, at 415. We find Campbell, like any other white defendant, has standing to raise an equal protection challenge to discrimination against black persons in the selection of his grand jury.

IV

It is axiomatic that one has standing to litigate his or her own due process rights. We need not explore the nature and extent of a defendant's due process rights when he alleges discriminatory selection of grand jurors, and confine our holding to his standing to raise the issue. Our decision in Peters v. Kiff addressed the due process question, al-

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