‘NMI’s disturbing-the-peace law too vague’

A law firm representing a convicted peace disturber has challenged the constitutionality of the CNMI’s disturbing the peace law before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The law offices of Gorman and Gavras filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the High Court to appeal the CNMI Supreme Court’s decision to affirm the conviction of Diego Mundo in a disturbing the peace case.

Court records showed that the charges stemmed from an arrest at Rosie’s Gazebo restaurant in Tinian on Aug. 4, 2001.

On that night, police asked Mundo to leave after annoying some tourists at the establishment and getting into an argument with another customer. Mundo, however, refused to leave, saying he was not doing anything wrong.

After the ensuing struggle, he was charged with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest.

The Superior Court subsequently found Mundo guilty of the charges. He was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $500 for disturbing the peace and sentenced to 12 months in jail and fined $1,000 for resisting arrest. This is the maximum sentence allowed by law.

Mundo appealed the decision. He asked the CNMI Supreme Court to overturn the disturbing the peace law based upon the “void for vagueness doctrine.”

“According to this doctrine, a law must be sufficiently defined to put the average person on notice of the elements of a crime,” attorney A. Alexander Gorman said in a news statement.

“In this case, the disturbing the peace statute makes it a crime to ‘annoy or disturb’ another. These terms have been held by other courts to be too vague to define a crime under the Fourteenth Amendment [due process]. Other courts have held that the victim’s perception of a defendant’s actions are not sufficient to criminalize an act,” Gorman said.

In July 2004, the CNMI Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the trial court. According to the High Court, it was not at all vague that Mundo’s conduct at Rosie’s unreasonably annoyed or disturbed other people.

“A person of ordinary intelligence certainly would know that Mundo’s antics in this situation constitute conduct that would annoy and disturb others. He stole food, picked a chair to threaten another man, harassed the customers at Rosie’s and trespassed at Rosie’s by refusing to leave despite being asked by the owner and the police to leave,” the court had said.

Gorman, however, argued that the Supreme Court applied a very loose test to Mundo’s case.

“According to defendant’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, this is the problem with the statute—until a defendant is tried or convicted, he does not know how the crime is defined,” Gorman said. “This is a violation of due process.”

Still, Gorman admitted that a petition to the Supreme Court does not mean that the Supreme Court will hear the case.

“Unlike the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court only hears about 1 percent of the cases that are submitted to it. As such, it is highly unlikely that the local decision will even be considered, much less reversed. However, the court can summarily reverse the CNMI Supreme Court without a decision if it so chooses,” Gorman said.