Cite as: 518 U. S. 343 (1996)
Opinion of Souter, J.
capable of judicial resolution." Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 101 (1968). We ask a plaintiff to prove "actual or threatened injury" to ensure that "the legal questions presented to the court will be resolved, not in the rarified atmosphere of a debating society, but in a concrete factual context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the consequences of judicial action." Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982).
I do not disagree with the Court that in order to meet these standards (in a case that does not involve substantial systemic deprivation of access), a prisoner suing under Bounds must assert something more than an abstract desire to have an adequate library or some other access mechanism. Nevertheless, while I believe that a prisoner must generally have some underlying claim or grievance for which he seeks judicial relief, I cannot endorse the standing requirement the Court now imposes.
On the Court's view, a district court may be required to examine the merits of each plaintiff's underlying claim in order to determine whether he has standing to litigate a Bounds claim. Ante, at 353, n. 3. The Court would require a determination that the claim is "nonfrivolous," ante, at 353, in the legal sense that it states a claim for relief that is at least arguable in law and in fact. I, in contrast, would go no further than to require that a prisoner have some concrete grievance or gripe about the conditions of his confinement, the validity of his conviction, or perhaps some other problem for which he would seek legal redress, see Part III-B, infra (even though a claim based on that grievance might well fail sooner or later in the judicial process).
There are three reasons supporting this as a sufficient standard. First, it is the existence of an underlying grievance, not its ultimate legal merit, that gives a prisoner a concrete interest in the litigation and will thus assure the serious and adversarial treatment of the Bounds claim.
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