Opinion ID: 2499529
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Challenge to the information

Text: Relying on Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), and Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), Maestas argues that the information violates the federal constitution because it did not allege that the aggravating circumstance outweighs the mitigating circumstances and the aggravating circumstance was not subject to a probable-cause determination. Although the effect of these Supreme Court decisions is that the aggravating circumstances used to increase the punishment for murder beyond the statutory maximum absent the aggravating circumstances must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt, Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348; Ring, 536 U.S. at 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428, those decisions were based on the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and did not address the question of including the same facts in an indictment, Ring, 536 U.S. at 598 n. 4, 122 S.Ct. 2428; Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 477 n. 3, 120 S.Ct. 2348. And although the Court has indicated that in federal prosecutions, facts that must be submitted to a jury under Apprendi also must be charged in the indictment, United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 627, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002), that requirement stems from the Fifth Amendment right to presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, which applies only to the federal government and has not been incorporated into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 477 n. 3, 120 S.Ct. 2348; Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625, 633, 92 S.Ct. 1221, 31 L.Ed.2d 536 (1972). Nothing in Apprendi and Ring altered the long-standing rule that the Fifth Amendment indictment provision does not apply to state prosecutions. [15] Accordingly, we reject Maestas' argument that the federal constitution requires that aggravating circumstances and the balancing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances be alleged in the charging document in a state prosecution. [16] Because the aggravating circumstances are not required to be pleaded in the charging document, it naturally follows that they are not subject to a probable-cause determination.