Latest / Justice Team Podcast / The Fight for Jaime and the Search for Answers with Robbie Munoz

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The Fight for Jaime and the Search for Answers with Robbie Munoz · Justice Team Podcast

• 0:02
  Hey, it's Bob Simon taking a break to tell you about CallRail.
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• 0:34
  Welcome to this episode of the Justice Team Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
• 0:37
  I'm your host, Bob Simon, and today we have on the Justice
• 0:39
  Team's partner trial lawyer.
• 0:43
  Civil advocate.
• 0:44
  I mean, you're like, everything mentor Robbie Munoz.
• 0:47
  Thank you very much Bob.
• 0:48
  Just trying to juggle it all and keep it all in the air, but uh,
• 0:51
  yeah, been busy and a lot of good things coming down the pipeline.
• 0:55
  Yeah.
• 0:55
  So some of the things we're gonna cover with today is Robbie's been
• 0:58
  working on with the family of, um, of an individual that, an undocumented
• 1:04
  immigrant that was a worker that.
• 1:07
  While he was there just to work, cannabis Farm got raided.
• 1:10
  He wasn't supposed to be there that day.
• 1:12
  Yep.
• 1:12
  He ended up dying.
• 1:14
  Yeah.
• 1:14
  And uh, you wanna tell us about Jaime a little bit?
• 1:17
  Yeah, we'll, we'll talk about this in this episode and we're also gonna
• 1:19
  cover Robbie's in the living room a lot with folks that unfortunately
• 1:23
  suffered a wrongful death.
• 1:25
  Something they didn't an.
• 1:27
  I was gonna have to walk you through all the stuff that you
• 1:29
  have to be ready to deal with.
• 1:30
  Yeah.
• 1:31
  Yeah.
• 1:31
  So we do represent the family of, uh, Jaime LAIs.
• 1:36
  Um, Jaime, as Bob mentioned, was working at a, uh, cannabis farm, just kind
• 1:42
  of going about his, his daily work.
• 1:44
  Uh, there's also a tomato farm that he used to work at that's connected
• 1:49
  to this can cannabis farm, but.
• 1:51
  Uh, while he's working, uh, ice comes onto the premises, kind of
• 1:56
  causes pandemonium, causes panic.
• 1:59
  People are, you know, very scared.
• 2:01
  Um, and Jaime, at a certain point, ends up on top of a roof and there's
• 2:08
  been, and this will take some time, it'll eventually come out.
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  There has been some, uh, inaccurate facts about, you
• 2:15
  know, what he was doing in Yeah.
• 2:16
  And, and those are things that we will find.
• 2:19
  I mean, there's.
• 2:21
  There's a warrant that was issued, right?
• 2:23
  That's judicial warrant signed by a judge for specific reasons.
• 2:27
  You're under the 14th amendment for.
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  You can't just do it because people are, are brown or speak Spanish, right?
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  Equal protections clause, right?
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  And then under the fourth AME amendment, you have to do things
• 2:37
  by executing that warrant, right?
• 2:39
  You have to have probable cause, et cetera, et cetera.
• 2:40
  So we'll see that.
• 2:42
  And also they're supposed to have.
• 2:43
  Cameras there.
• 2:44
  Yeah.
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  Body cam camera.
• 2:45
  So we should be able to get all this information.
• 2:47
  Right?
• 2:47
  Right.
• 2:48
  We should have a good idea once we start putting these pieces together.
• 2:51
  And that's in a case like this, that's the foundation, right?
• 2:54
  Is trying to figure out, you know, what camera footage is there, what angles are,
• 2:59
  you know, are those cameras positioned at, did they capture the incident occurring?
• 3:03
  Um, eyewitness testimony here, it's a little bit more complicated
• 3:07
  because you know the locations of everyone since that raid.
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  Not as easy as going down down the street or next door.
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  I think they took 320 some people.
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  Three 50 something.
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  Yeah, it was like right under three 50.
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  Wow.
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  350 people.
• 3:21
  Yeah.
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  That were just uprooted that day.
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  Jaime unfortunately did not make it out of, out of that, um, out of that
• 3:28
  incident, out of that raid, um, shortly after that, his family decided that it
• 3:34
  was time to take him off life support.
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  But we're, we're working really fast.
• 3:38
  We're laying the foundation, trying to put the pieces together, really to
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  try to give answers to this family, to try to give this family some sense
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  of, of understanding, of peace in, in knowing exactly how this all occurred.
• 3:54
  Uh, and then hopefully justice, right?
• 3:57
  If there's a path forward to find justice.
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  That's, that's our goal.
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  If something went wrong, if something was done improperly.
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  That needs to be brought out, that needs to come to light.
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  Um, and, and the perpetrators, whoever did something wrong,
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  they need to be held accountable.
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  You know, this is a case that's kind of easily summarized by
• 4:17
  saying someone lost their life.
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  Someone's gotta answer for it.
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  Yeah.
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  In a situation like this, you wanna make sure it doesn't, doesn't happen again.
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  And people on both sides are protected.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  You want to protect.
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  Folks that are executing, hopefully a valid war on for valid reasons.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  If that's the way.
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  And for the people that are there on the other side.
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  Right, exactly.
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  This shouldn't, exactly.
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  This shouldn't happen.
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  And I can't recall ever seeing another human being lose their life
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  under a circumstance like this.
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  Yeah.
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  It was from all accounts.
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  Right now, and again, we're still investigating, but from
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  all accounts it, it seemed like.
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  Uh, this, this whole process, the execution of the warrant, this
• 5:00
  raid, uh, it was pandemonium.
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  You know, it was a lot of fear.
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  There was a lot of, um, uncertainty on that premises when this was happening.
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  And you had, you know, a lot of folks just in fear, you know, scared.
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  And you see like in, you know, I was thinking about this today, like if
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  somebody came into my house and said.
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  And like we're taking you or grabbing your children or with the US
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  government, like how do I know that?
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  Yeah.
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  And how do I see a warrant?
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  Like Yeah.
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  And you, there were some videos that were posted on social media where,
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  um, a civilian, those working, there was actually an active military.
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  It was one of the security guards there.
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  Right.
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  It was well on video asking for the warrant.
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  They wouldn't show 'em the warrant.
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  And um, and he got detained.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  American citizen.
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  Yeah.
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  We're seeing this insane.
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  This is, this is like.
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  I think this is part of the reason why we feel so, so passionately about these
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  cases is because you, you've had just, you know, numerous, uh, videos that
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  are being circulated online right now.
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  You can see 'em anywhere.
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  You can just pull 'em up.
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  You've got people in mass that are showing up places, masks that, uh,
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  are showing up to different places and pulling people and grabbing
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  them, putting 'em in, in vehicles.
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  No identification, no information.
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  You have people all over trying to be a voice to those being grabbed and
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  taken and they're not getting answers.
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  I mean, this is really scary stuff.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And for, for me specifically, you know, I, it, it strikes home, I grew
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  up in Santa Ana and, and a lot of people don't know what Santa Ana is or
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  where it is, but, you know, Santa Ana is, uh, it's home to, to my family.
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  And my community in Santa Ana is largely Latino.
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  It is, uh, you know, a lot of immigrants.
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  And what really hit me was, you know, so I grew up boxing in Santa Ana,
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  as you know, and we've got a local boxing club that's done tremendous
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  work in this, in this community.
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  And it has been a, a safe haven for kids for the last 30 years trying to
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  prevent gang violence, gang involvement.
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  When you've got kids who are now afraid to show up to their boxing
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  club, their afterschool boxing club, because they don't know what's
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  gonna happen, and you've got parents who won't drive them to the gym.
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  Now you're looking at a ripple effect in the community, right?
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  You're looking at, this has long-term ramifications.
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  You're taking away opportunities for kids to feel safe, for kids to
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  engage in things that are keeping them out of more troublesome Yeah.
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  Issues.
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  So, um.
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  That, that really struck home for me because that's,
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  that's directly related to me.
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  I was getting phone calls from the club and if you go to any of
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  the, you know, swap beats or any local things, like, it's sad.
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  Yeah.
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  'cause nobody, nobody comes.
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  They're afraid.
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  Right.
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  And it's just, I mean, it has that
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  people don't feel safe and then people aren't supporting local businesses
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  because they're not out shopping.
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  They're afraid to go anywhere.
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  Yeah.
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  Right.
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  Yeah.
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  And I know people that are here.
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  Legally that are here, have a legal status.
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  Yeah.
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  And they're afraid to do anything.
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  Yeah.
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  Because of their skin color.
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  Absolutely.
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  Or because the way that they speak English, they have
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  an accent, they're afraid.
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  And, and, and, you know, I, this is why I've always been such a big advocate
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  of, of history and we've seen a little bit of, uh, an, an assault on history at
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  times, but I think it's really important.
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  And, and the Mendez Westminster case is something that I teach to, to high
• 8:37
  school students through abo a actually.
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  Um, yeah, I, I teach it every couple months.
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  There's a lesson that we share with, you know, probably 50 to a hundred
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  high school students, and we talk about segregation in Orange County and how
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  ending segregation in Orange County was the precursor to Brown View Board and how
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  important that Landmark first case was, Mendez v Westminster, and then obviously
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  how important Brown V Board is, but.
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  I say that because you're seeing to some extent a repetition, right?
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  You're seeing certain themes come back to life here, uh, when we're going after
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  folks based on skin color, you know, origin, national origin, um, language.
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  Uh, so it is scary, but the more we can teach other people, the more
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  we can share about our history.
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  I think that's the way we prevent this.
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  Yeah.
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  And you know, it's wild.
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  Like, you know, you watch a lot of shows that, like I was watching this morning,
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  um, my daughters are in the Zombies, a Disney show and like the Descendants,
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  but there's one that Zombies won.
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  They segregated the school between the zombies and regular kids.
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  It literally had a sign as they walked in with a fence in the middle.
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  It said zombies and then regular kids.
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  And one of my daughters was just like, why would they treat people differently?
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  'cause they look different.
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  I was like, oh my god, you have no idea.
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  Like, those are zombies, but yeah.
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  Buckle, buckle up.
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  Yeah.
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  Lemme teach you about what happened, you know, through, through American history.
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  Right.
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  But, um, the kids don't feel that way.
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  It's just like everybody's the same.
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  Yeah.
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  But you learn this trait to do this for whatever reason later.
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  But if anybody's out there, they're watching or listening, how can
• 10:09
  they get ahold of you if they know anything about folks and corroborate.
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  Those facts about what happened about that, Jaime?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So, uh, email is the best way, robbie@justiceteam.com.
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  Uh, you can look me up on our firm's website.
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  I'm, I'm there.
• 10:23
  Um, I'm, you know, always, you know, around you.
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  So anytime you need to get in touch with me, if you get in touch
• 10:29
  with Bob, uh, that works too.
• 10:31
  But Robbie at Justice team dot com's, easiest way.
• 10:34
  We got a long way to go on this, but mm-hmm.
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  You know, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to find some,
• 10:37
  some very helpful information.
• 10:39
  Yeah.
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  And just, I mean, right now it's just about having answers.
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  Yeah.
• 10:42
  And letting people know what they can do.
• 10:44
  Um, well let's talk about the process that you went through recently that you
• 10:46
  do a lot with is, you know, whenever somebody loses a, a loved one under
• 10:51
  tragic circumstances and taken by very unnatural ways, what are some of the
• 10:56
  things that we should be treating those folks like, and what are some things that
• 10:59
  you have to do that people don't realize?
• 11:01
  This is part of.
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  When you're helping people with those types of cases.
• 11:04
  Yeah, so, uh, in a weird way, in my time at SLG, I think I just kind
• 11:12
  of, I don't know what, I got pulled in early on to some cases that
• 11:17
  were connected to me by family or friends and wrongful death cases.
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  And I kind of just built a little bit of a niche for, for connecting to those cases,
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  and it's really been that way ever since.
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  And I think that the most important thing.
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  And I try to walk into every single one of these meetings the same way.
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  I try to focus on just really connecting on a human level.
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  And, and, you know, one of the more recent meetings was with his family.
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  And, uh, they asked me, well, what, what's the first thing you wanna talk about?
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  You know, what's, what do we, where do we start?
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  Was the question.
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  And my response was.
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  Tell me about Jaime.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Tell me about his family.
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  Tell me about the human being that he was.
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  'cause if I don't know about who he was as a person, none of this matters.
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  Right?
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  I have to know who he was to be able to represent him, uh, in a way that really
• 12:09
  does him justice and his family justice.
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  So that, like, it just immediately brought so much ease to the family.
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  And you saw kind of this weight get taken off their shoulders 'cause.
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  It wasn't gonna be some legal conversation.
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  This was just gonna be a human conversation.
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  And we ended up talking about his family and talking about, you know, the things
• 12:31
  that, you know, their, their memories of him, and this is how I approach every
• 12:36
  single one of these meetings, is I just really try to learn about the family
• 12:42
  dynamic, the person that was lost.
• 12:45
  And it's really tough because you have to balance.
• 12:49
  The ongoing process of grief, what this family's going through in that moment,
• 12:53
  they're grieving with, you're also trying to lay the foundation of a case, right?
• 12:58
  You gotta, there's early steps you have to take in an investigation and you have to
• 13:02
  do certain things to be sure that you have the evidence that you need in the case.
• 13:06
  So you're kind of shepherding them through both paths.
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  Um, but just being real and really just trying to learn and not.
• 13:16
  Getting too technical and just spending a good amount of time
• 13:19
  learning about the human being.
• 13:21
  Yeah.
• 13:21
  Anybody watching or listening?
• 13:22
  If you are a lawyer and you're handling these types of cases, while
• 13:26
  you've probably done these similar cases before, this is the first and
• 13:30
  only time this family's ever gonna go through something like this.
• 13:33
  That's right.
• 13:33
  That's right.
• 13:33
  And you have to treat it that way.
• 13:35
  Yeah.
• 13:35
  You have to think of it that way.
• 13:37
  Um, and what are some of those steps that you have to take from like.
• 13:40
  The immediate legal side of things to preserve that evidence.
• 13:44
  And then what are some things that you have to help the family with that most
• 13:46
  people don't realize that you have to do when you have a case like this?
• 13:49
  Yeah, so letters of preservation.
• 13:51
  Immediately getting those out, making sure that we've got letters of preservation
• 13:54
  on every single, you know, place that may have some kind of evidence
• 13:58
  that's gonna be important in the case.
• 14:01
  Um, you know, making sure that we, you know, we get investigators out to canvas
• 14:05
  to get statements, witness statements, um.
• 14:08
  And then, you know, with a lot of these wrongful death cases, this is
• 14:11
  something that a lot of people don't think about but wanting to get, if,
• 14:15
  if an autopsy was done by the county and the coroner's office, okay, well
• 14:19
  you have that first box checked, but.
• 14:23
  Potentially having a second independent autopsy done to have your own,
• 14:28
  you know, expert, your own, uh, pathologist, work through an autopsy.
• 14:33
  That's important.
• 14:34
  And yeah.
• 14:35
  And sometimes there, there's a race, like they do it before
• 14:37
  they can ever find an attorney.
• 14:38
  This happens all the time.
• 14:39
  Yeah.
• 14:39
  You know, and one thing that people don't understand is that in that process.
• 14:44
  You're, you're bal again, it's like, you know, you're, you're balancing
• 14:47
  two different things here, right?
• 14:48
  You've got a funeral that's impending, you've got cremation services,
• 14:53
  you've got a celebration of life, and you're trying to preserve
• 14:56
  evidence that you need for your case.
• 14:58
  So you want to make sure that you're not embalming the body.
• 15:02
  You wanna make sure that you're, you know, you're giving your, whoever's gonna do
• 15:05
  the autopsy, that doctor an appropriate amount of time, and the opportunity
• 15:11
  to be able to have the best shot.
• 15:13
  At, at doing the autopsy correctly and securing that evidence.
• 15:17
  Yeah.
• 15:17
  A lot of times, like, you know,
• 15:21
  getting the deceased vessel, their body back across state
• 15:25
  lines or even international Yeah.
• 15:27
  Lines like, these are things that you just don't, I mean, I remember when
• 15:30
  I was a young lawyer and had a case like that, I just had no idea that you
• 15:32
  had to go through, like, you gotta go through the consulate to be able mm-hmm.
• 15:35
  To do these things.
• 15:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:36
  I was like, wow, this is a whole different experience.
• 15:38
  Yeah.
• 15:38
  Um, but how often, like, I mean.
• 15:42
  You seem to give open access to these families that need you.
• 15:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:45
  Would you say that?
• 15:46
  Yeah, I think it's important.
• 15:48
  Every single one of the families I represent, I mean, really almost
• 15:50
  every client has my cell phone.
• 15:52
  And sometimes it, it's challenging, you know, when you're getting, uh, text
• 15:57
  messages at 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night.
• 15:59
  Yeah.
• 15:59
  I saw you out, you know, here at Justice hq and I saw you had a bunch of phones.
• 16:03
  I was like, well, we have so many phones, but there's actually evidence it wasn't,
• 16:05
  Robbie's not carrying burner phones.
• 16:07
  Yeah, no, that was, that was, that was evidence.
• 16:09
  That was a, a client's phone.
• 16:10
  But you, you know, you, you have to make yourself accessible
• 16:15
  because if they, if clients feel like they're just a, a, a number.
• 16:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:19
  Right.
• 16:19
  That's.
• 16:20
  You're gonna lose that connection that you're trying to build.
• 16:23
  I mean, I go, uh, I have breakfast with clients.
• 16:26
  I, I go, you know, I'll have lunch or dinner and I'll try to make a regular
• 16:31
  effort to meet with them because I'm just trying to build the human connection.
• 16:37
  If we get to the end point and we eventually do get to trial, that's
• 16:41
  gonna, that's like you're, you just putting money in the bank, right?
• 16:43
  It's everything.
• 16:44
  That's everything.
• 16:45
  So, and you already know it so well, and they know how to advocate
• 16:47
  better for them and it's personal.
• 16:49
  Um, yeah.
• 16:50
  Yeah.
• 16:51
  Well, I mean, Robbie, thanks for coming.
• 16:52
  I know we have a lot of work to do immediately with Jaime's case.
• 16:56
  Yeah.
• 16:56
  Um, and know you have a bunch of trials coming up too.
• 16:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:59
  And having that balance.
• 17:00
  But anybody watching or listening, especially if they know anything
• 17:02
  about what happened, um, at the Cannabis Farm that day at Class
• 17:06
  House, reach out to Robbie.
• 17:08
  Yeah.
• 17:08
  You know, we're trying to.
• 17:09
  Make sure everybody gets a clear understanding of what happened
• 17:11
  before things could be fabricated.
• 17:13
  We've seen these things happen all the time where there just happens
• 17:15
  to be no video and happens to be no, all the evidence is gone.
• 17:18
  I mean, that looks real bad, but, you know, which is why we're
• 17:20
  trying to move as fast as we can.
• 17:22
  Yeah, yeah.
• 17:23
  You know, if anybody at the federal government's watching just, you know,
• 17:26
  publish the, the, the footage, the body cam footage, body cam footage,
• 17:30
  publish the, uh, the warrant, the warrant, the judicial warrant.
• 17:33
  I mean, if I would say if things are done accurately and like.
• 17:37
  Just hand it over and then they'll, that would speeds up the process a a lot quick.
• 17:41
  Yeah, it would be done, but um, that's what should be done.
• 17:45
  We, we will see if that can be done.
• 17:46
  But Robbie, thanks for coming on.
• 17:47
  Always appreciate seeing you.
• 17:48
  I mean, thank you.
• 17:49
  We talk every day.
• 17:50
  But yeah, seeing you in person, you know, it's good.
• 17:51
  Thank you.
• 17:52
  Thank you for having me on.
• 17:53
  Thanks for watching, listening to this epi episode, the Justice Team
• 17:55
  Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
• 17:57
  Watch out to robbie@justiceteam.com.
• 17:59
  It's Robbie with an I and an E and two B's, one R and an O.
• 18:02
  That's right.
• 18:03
  Thanks.
• 18:03
  All right, thank you.