High Court affirms man’s conviction

The Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of a man for disturbing the peace and resisting arrest.

This came after the High Court denied an appeal filed by Diego S. Mundo, who had claimed that his right to due process was “unconstitutionally vague” and that the prosecution failed to prove all the elements of the case against him.

Court records showed that the charges stemmed from an incident at Rosie’s Gazebo Restaurant on Tinian on Aug. 4, 2001, when an intoxicated Mundo caused tourists to leave the establishment by begging them to buy him drinks.

On the same night, Mundo also got into an argument with another customer, Norbert Manglona. During the argument, Mundo picked up one of the chairs and threatened Manglona with the legs of the chair facing toward Manglona. Police were called when the argument escalated with Manglona also picking up a chair and Mundo raising his voice.

When they arrived, police asked Mundo and Manglona to leave because they were disturbing the peace of the customers. Manglona left but Mundo refused to do so, insisting he was doing nothing wrong.

After several more attempts to make Mundo leave, police decided to arrest him. He struggled with the officers all the way to the patrol car.

The trial court subsequently found Mundo guilty of disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. 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.

The appeal followed. Mundo claimed that the Commonwealth’s law on disturbing the peace is void for vagueness because it does not define “annoys or disturbs” or “peace and quiet.”

But the High Court maintained that “it is not at all vague that Mundo’s conduct at Rosie’s unreasonably annoyed or disturbed other people so as to deprive them of their right to peace and quiet.”

“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 said. “In light of this behavior, we find that a reasonable trier of fact could have found that Mundo’s actions were unlawful beyond a reasonable doubt.”