When filing murder charges, prosecutors don’t have to spell out the specific facts that jurors must find to impose the death penalty, a sharply divided Arizona Supreme Court ruled Nov. 3.

The practice still satisfies the constitutional protection Arizona court rules already require — that prosecutors disclose before trial if they plan to seek the death penalty and on what grounds, the majority ruled in a 3-2 decision.

However, two dissenting justices said the Arizona Constitution’s due-process right to have a grand jury or judge determine whether there is probable cause to charge someone is “effectively eviscerated’’ by the majority’s ruling.

The ruling came in a Maricopa County case in which DNA evidence led to the 2001 indictment of Kerby James McRaney for two killings at a Glendale mobile home park in 1986. When indicted, McRaney already was in prison for two 1986 slayings in Tempe.

The issue before the Supreme Court is whether McRaney was charged in a way that legally allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty against him if convicted of the Glendale killings.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that juries, not judges, must determine aggravating circumstances that could lead to a death sentence.

In McRaney’s case, prosecutors declared after he was charged that they would seek the death penalty because he had a prior conviction for a serious offense, had been convicted of at least one other homicide and the new offense was committed in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved fashion.

While awaiting trial in the deaths of Elva Maxine Rose, 69, and Marcos Pete Renfro, 45, McRaney asked the Supreme Court to overturn the trial judge’s decision to not bar a possible death sentence.

The Supreme Court’s majority of Chief Justice Charles E. Jones and Justices Ruth V. McGregor and Rebecca White Berch said their ruling was in accord with rulings by all other states except one, which has considered the same issue.

Federal courts have ruled that the U.S. Constitution requires that federal prosecutors specify the equivalent of aggravating circumstances along with the charges. But that provision doesn’t specifically apply to state charges, the majority said.

Dissenting Justices Andrew D. Hurwitz and Michael D. Ryan said not requiring prosecutors to put alleged aggravating circumstances in criminal charges in a possible death penalty case would be like letting prosecutors unilaterally amend an assault indictment to the more serious charge of aggravated assault.

The majority disputed the dissenters’ contention that the ruling was an unprecedented weakening of a constitutional right.

FYI

The case is McRaney vs. State, CV-04-0032-SA. —