128
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
States,25 private persons regularly prosecuted criminal cases. The interest in punishing the defendant and deterring violations of law by the defendant and others was sufficient to support the "standing" of the private prosecutor even if the only remedy was the sentencing of the defendant to jail or to the gallows. Given this history, the Framers of Article III surely would have considered such proceedings to be "Cases" that would "redress" an injury even though the party bringing suit did not receive any monetary compensation.26
The Court's expanded interpretation of the redressability requirement has another consequence. Under EPCRA,
early common law England, where the legal system primarily relied upon the victim or the victim's relatives or friends to bring a criminal to justice. According to these historians, private prosecutions developed in England as a means of facilitating private vengeance." Bessler, The Public Interest and the Unconstitutionality of Private Prosecutors, 47 Ark. L. Rev. 511, 515 (1994) (footnotes omitted).
25 "American citizens continued to privately prosecute criminal cases in many locales during the nineteenth century. In Philadelphia, for example, all types of cases were privately prosecuted, with assault and battery prosecutions being the most common. However, domestic disputes short of assault also came before the court. Thus, 'parents of young women prosecuted men for seduction; husbands prosecuted their wives' paramours for adultery; wives prosecuted their husbands for desertion.' Although many state courts continued to sanction the practice of private prosecutions without significant scrutiny during the nineteenth century, a few state courts outlawed the practice." Id., at 518-519 (footnotes omitted); A. Steinberg, The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Philadelphia, 1800-1880, p. 5 (1989) ("Private prosecution and the minor judiciary were firmly rooted in Philadelphia's colonial past. Both were examples of the creative American adaptation of the English common law. By the 17th century, private prosecution was a fundamental part of English common law"); see also F. Goodnow, Principles of the Administrative Law of the United States 412-413 (1905).
26 When such a party obtains a judgment that imposes sanctions on the wrongdoer, it is proper to presume that the wrongdoer will be less likely to repeat the injurious conduct that prompted the litigation. The lessening of the risk of future harm is a concrete benefit.
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