Editing Standing (law) (section)

===Standing to challenge statutes===
With limited exceptions, a party cannot have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute unless they will be subjected to the provisions of that statute.  There are some exceptions, however; for example, courts will accept [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] challenges to a statute on overbreadth grounds, where a person who is only partially affected by a statute can challenge the parts that do not affect him on the grounds that laws that restrict speech have a [[Chilling effect (term)|chilling effect]] on other people's right to free speech.

The only other way someone can have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute is if the existence of the statute would otherwise deprive him of a right or a privilege even if the statute itself would not apply to him. The Virginia Supreme Court made this point clear in the case of ''[[Martin v. Ziherl]]'' 607 S.E.2d 367 (Va. 2005). Martin and Ziherl were girlfriend and boyfriend and engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse when Martin discovered that Ziherl had infected her with [[herpes]], even though he knew he was infected and did not inform her of this. She sued him for damages, but because it was illegal (at the time the case was filed) to commit "fornication" (sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married), Ziherl argued that Martin could not sue him because joint tortfeasors – those involved in committing a crime – cannot sue each other over acts occurring as a result of a criminal act (''Zysk v. Zysk'', 404 S.E.2d 721 (Va. 1990)). Martin argued in rebuttal that because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''[[Lawrence v. Texas]]'' (finding that state's sodomy law unconstitutional), Virginia's anti-fornication law was also unconstitutional for the reasons cited in Lawrence. Martin argued, therefore, she could, in fact, sue Ziherl for damages.

Lower courts decided that because the Commonwealth's Attorney does not prosecute [[fornication]] cases and no one had been prosecuted for fornication anywhere in Virginia in over 100&nbsp;years, Martin had no risk of prosecution and thus lacked standing to challenge the statute. Martin appealed. Since Martin had something to lose – the ability to sue Ziherl for damages – if the statute was upheld, she had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statute even though the possibility of her being prosecuted for violating it was zero. Since the U.S. Supreme Court in ''Lawrence'' had found that there is a privacy right in one's private, noncommercial sexual practices, the Virginia Supreme Court decided that the statute against fornication was unconstitutional. The finding gave Martin standing to sue Ziherl since the decision in ''Zysk'' was no longer applicable.

However, the only reason Martin had standing to challenge the statute was that she had something to lose if it stayed on the books.