402
Opinion of the Court
bell's lack of standing to litigate a due process claim. 661 So. 2d, at 1324.
The Louisiana Supreme Court was wrong on both counts. Its interpretation of Hobby is inconsistent with the implicit assumption of standing we have just noted and with our explicit reasoning in that case. In Hobby, a federal grand jury foreperson was selected from the existing grand jurors, so the decision to pick one grand juror over another, at least arguably, affected the defendant only if the foreperson was given some significant duties that he would not have had as a regular grand juror. See supra, at 396. Against this background, the Court rejected the defendant's claim because the ministerial role of a federal grand jury foreperson "is not such a vital one that discrimination in the appointment of an individual to that post significantly invades" due process. Hobby, supra, at 346. Campbell's challenge is different in kind and degree because it implicates the impermissible appointment of a member of the grand jury. See supra, at 396-397. What concerns Campbell is not the fore-person's performance of his duty to preside, but performance as a grand juror, namely, voting to charge Campbell with second-degree murder.
The significance of this distinction was acknowledged by Hobby's discussion of a previous case, Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S. 545 (1979). In Rose, we assumed relief could be granted for a constitutional challenge to discrimination in the appointment of a state grand jury foreperson. See id., at 556. Hobby distinguished Rose in part because it involved Tennessee's grand jury system. Under the Tennessee law then in effect, 12 members of the grand jury were selected at random, and then the judge appointed a 13th member who also served as foreperson. See Hobby, 468 U. S., at 347. As a result, Hobby pointed out discrimination in selection of the foreperson in Tennessee was much more serious than in the federal system because the former can affect the composition of the grand jury whereas the latter cannot: "So
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