August 26, 2025 • 18 mins
This week, Bob sits down with partner trial lawyer and civil advocate Robbie Munoz to discuss a heartbreaking case involving an undocumented immigrant, Jaime, who tragically lost his life during an ICE raid at a cannabis farm. They discuss the details of the case, exploring legal and human aspects, the importance of evidence preservation, and the broader implications on the community. Robbie shares his approach to wrongful death cases, highlighting the profound need for compassion and human connection in legal practice.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hey, it's Bob Simon taking abreak to tell you about CallRail.
CallRail is a product that my firm uses,and what CallRail does is it plugs into
your phone calls with your intake and withyour clients to record those phone calls
as real time transcripts so you can getintelligence and with the attorney share.
Plugin, you can actually in real timebe able to send a referral out through
(00:23):
the marketplace to find the bestmatch all made possible with CallRail
being plugged into your firm's intakewith real intelligence CallRail.
Welcome to this episode of the JusticeTeam Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
I'm your host, Bob Simon, andtoday we have on the Justice
Team's partner trial lawyer.
(00:43):
Civil advocate.
I mean, you're like,everything mentor Robbie Munoz.
Thank you very much Bob.
Just trying to juggle it all andkeep it all in the air, but uh,
yeah, been busy and a lot of goodthings coming down the pipeline.
Yeah.
So some of the things we're gonnacover with today is Robbie's been
working on with the family of, um, ofan individual that, an undocumented
(01:04):
immigrant that was a worker that.
While he was there just towork, cannabis Farm got raided.
He wasn't supposed to be there that day.
Yep.
He ended up dying.
Yeah.
And uh, you wanna tell usabout Jaime a little bit?
Yeah, we'll, we'll talk about thisin this episode and we're also gonna
cover Robbie's in the living rooma lot with folks that unfortunately
suffered a wrongful death.
(01:25):
Something they didn't an.
I was gonna have to walk youthrough all the stuff that you
have to be ready to deal with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we do represent thefamily of, uh, Jaime LAIs.
Um, Jaime, as Bob mentioned, was workingat a, uh, cannabis farm, just kind
of going about his, his daily work.
Uh, there's also a tomato farm thathe used to work at that's connected
(01:49):
to this can cannabis farm, but.
Uh, while he's working, uh, icecomes onto the premises, kind of
causes pandemonium, causes panic.
People are, you know, very scared.
Um, and Jaime, at a certain point,ends up on top of a roof and there's
been, and this will take sometime, it'll eventually come out.
(02:10):
There has been some, uh,inaccurate facts about, you
know, what he was doing in Yeah.
And, and those arethings that we will find.
I mean, there's.
There's a warrant that was issued, right?
That's judicial warrant signedby a judge for specific reasons.
You're under the 14th amendment for.
You can't just do it because peopleare, are brown or speak Spanish, right?
(02:32):
Equal protections clause, right?
And then under the fourth AMEamendment, you have to do things
by executing that warrant, right?
You have to have probablecause, et cetera, et cetera.
So we'll see that.
And also they're supposed to have.
Cameras there.
Yeah.
Body cam camera.
So we should be able toget all this information.
Right?
Right.
We should have a good idea once westart putting these pieces together.
And that's in a case like this,that's the foundation, right?
(02:54):
Is trying to figure out, you know, whatcamera footage is there, what angles are,
you know, are those cameras positioned at,did they capture the incident occurring?
Um, eyewitness testimony here,it's a little bit more complicated
because you know the locationsof everyone since that raid.
Not as easy as going downdown the street or next door.
(03:14):
I think they took 320 some people.
Three 50 something.
Yeah, it was like right under three 50.
Wow.
350 people.
Yeah.
That were just uprooted that day.
Jaime unfortunately did not make itout of, out of that, um, out of that
incident, out of that raid, um, shortlyafter that, his family decided that it
was time to take him off life support.
(03:36):
But we're, we're working really fast.
We're laying the foundation, tryingto put the pieces together, really to
try to give answers to this family,to try to give this family some sense
of, of understanding, of peace in, inknowing exactly how this all occurred.
Uh, and then hopefully justice, right?
(03:57):
If there's a path forward to find justice.
That's, that's our goal.
If something went wrong, ifsomething was done improperly.
That needs to be brought out,that needs to come to light.
Um, and, and the perpetrators,whoever did something wrong,
they need to be held accountable.
You know, this is a case that'skind of easily summarized by
(04:17):
saying someone lost their life.
Someone's gotta answer for it.
Yeah.
In a situation like this, you wanna makesure it doesn't, doesn't happen again.
And people on both sides are protected.
Right.
Right.
You want to protect.
Folks that are executing, hopefullya valid war on for valid reasons.
Yeah, yeah.
If that's the way.
And for the people that arethere on the other side.
Right, exactly.
This shouldn't, exactly.
(04:37):
This shouldn't happen.
And I can't recall ever seeinganother human being lose their life
under a circumstance like this.
Yeah.
It was from all accounts.
Right now, and again, we'restill investigating, but from
all accounts it, it seemed like.
Uh, this, this whole process, theexecution of the warrant, this
(05:00):
raid, uh, it was pandemonium.
You know, it was a lot of fear.
There was a lot of, um, uncertainty onthat premises when this was happening.
And you had, you know, a lot offolks just in fear, you know, scared.
And you see like in, you know, I wasthinking about this today, like if
somebody came into my house and said.
(05:21):
And like we're taking you orgrabbing your children or with the US
government, like how do I know that?
Yeah.
And how do I see a warrant?
Like Yeah.
And you, there were some videos thatwere posted on social media where,
um, a civilian, those working, therewas actually an active military.
It was one of the security guards there.
Right.
It was well on videoasking for the warrant.
They wouldn't show 'em the warrant.
And um, and he got detained.
(05:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
American citizen.
Yeah.
We're seeing this insane.
This is, this is like.
I think this is part of the reason whywe feel so, so passionately about these
cases is because you, you've had just,you know, numerous, uh, videos that
are being circulated online right now.
You can see 'em anywhere.
You can just pull 'em up.
You've got people in mass that areshowing up places, masks that, uh,
(06:06):
are showing up to different placesand pulling people and grabbing
them, putting 'em in, in vehicles.
No identification, no information.
You have people all over trying tobe a voice to those being grabbed and
taken and they're not getting answers.
I mean, this is really scary stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And for, for me specifically, youknow, I, it, it strikes home, I grew
(06:32):
up in Santa Ana and, and a lot ofpeople don't know what Santa Ana is or
where it is, but, you know, Santa Anais, uh, it's home to, to my family.
And my community in SantaAna is largely Latino.
It is, uh, you know, a lot of immigrants.
And what really hit me was, you know,so I grew up boxing in Santa Ana,
(06:57):
as you know, and we've got a localboxing club that's done tremendous
work in this, in this community.
And it has been a, a safe haven forkids for the last 30 years trying to
prevent gang violence, gang involvement.
When you've got kids who are nowafraid to show up to their boxing
club, their afterschool boxingclub, because they don't know what's
(07:19):
gonna happen, and you've got parentswho won't drive them to the gym.
Now you're looking at a rippleeffect in the community, right?
You're looking at, this haslong-term ramifications.
You're taking away opportunitiesfor kids to feel safe, for kids to
engage in things that are keepingthem out of more troublesome Yeah.
Issues.
So, um.
(07:40):
That, that really struckhome for me because that's,
that's directly related to me.
I was getting phone calls fromthe club and if you go to any of
the, you know, swap beats or anylocal things, like, it's sad.
Yeah.
'cause nobody, nobody comes.
They're afraid.
Right.
And it's just, I mean, it has that
(08:00):
people don't feel safe and then peoplearen't supporting local businesses
because they're not out shopping.
They're afraid to go anywhere.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And I know people that are here.
Legally that are here,have a legal status.
Yeah.
And they're afraid to do anything.
Yeah.
Because of their skin color.
Absolutely.
Or because the way that theyspeak English, they have
an accent, they're afraid.
And, and, and, you know, I, this is whyI've always been such a big advocate
(08:22):
of, of history and we've seen a littlebit of, uh, an, an assault on history at
times, but I think it's really important.
And, and the Mendez Westminster caseis something that I teach to, to high
school students through abo a actually.
Um, yeah, I, I teachit every couple months.
There's a lesson that we share with,you know, probably 50 to a hundred
(08:46):
high school students, and we talk aboutsegregation in Orange County and how
ending segregation in Orange County wasthe precursor to Brown View Board and how
important that Landmark first case was,Mendez v Westminster, and then obviously
how important Brown V Board is, but.
I say that because you're seeingto some extent a repetition, right?
(09:08):
You're seeing certain themes come backto life here, uh, when we're going after
folks based on skin color, you know,origin, national origin, um, language.
Uh, so it is scary, but the morewe can teach other people, the more
we can share about our history.
I think that's the way we prevent this.
(09:29):
Yeah.
And you know, it's wild.
Like, you know, you watch a lot of showsthat, like I was watching this morning,
um, my daughters are in the Zombies, aDisney show and like the Descendants,
but there's one that Zombies won.
They segregated the school betweenthe zombies and regular kids.
It literally had a sign as theywalked in with a fence in the middle.
It said zombies and then regular kids.
And one of my daughters was just like,why would they treat people differently?
(09:52):
'cause they look different.
I was like, oh my god, you have no idea.
Like, those are zombies, but yeah.
Buckle, buckle up.
Yeah.
Lemme teach you about what happened, youknow, through, through American history.
Right.
But, um, the kids don't feel that way.
It's just like everybody's the same.
Yeah.
But you learn this trait to dothis for whatever reason later.
But if anybody's out there, they'rewatching or listening, how can
they get ahold of you if they knowanything about folks and corroborate.
(10:12):
Those facts about whathappened about that, Jaime?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, email is the bestway, robbie@justiceteam.com.
Uh, you can look me upon our firm's website.
I'm, I'm there.
Um, I'm, you know, always,you know, around you.
So anytime you need to get intouch with me, if you get in touch
with Bob, uh, that works too.
But Robbie at Justice teamdot com's, easiest way.
(10:34):
We got a long way togo on this, but mm-hmm.
You know, I'm hopeful thatwe'll be able to find some,
some very helpful information.
Yeah.
And just, I mean, right nowit's just about having answers.
Yeah.
And letting people know what they can do.
Um, well let's talk about the processthat you went through recently that you
do a lot with is, you know, wheneversomebody loses a, a loved one under
tragic circumstances and taken by veryunnatural ways, what are some of the
(10:56):
things that we should be treating thosefolks like, and what are some things that
you have to do that people don't realize?
This is part of.
When you're helping peoplewith those types of cases.
Yeah, so, uh, in a weird way, inmy time at SLG, I think I just kind
of, I don't know what, I got pulledin early on to some cases that
(11:17):
were connected to me by family orfriends and wrongful death cases.
And I kind of just built a little bit of aniche for, for connecting to those cases,
and it's really been that way ever since.
And I think that the most important thing.
And I try to walk into every singleone of these meetings the same way.
I try to focus on just reallyconnecting on a human level.
(11:39):
And, and, you know, one of the morerecent meetings was with his family.
And, uh, they asked me, well, what, what'sthe first thing you wanna talk about?
You know, what's, whatdo we, where do we start?
Was the question.
And my response was.
Tell me about Jaime.
Mm-hmm.
Tell me about his family.
Tell me about the human being that he was.
(11:59):
'cause if I don't know about who hewas as a person, none of this matters.
Right?
I have to know who he was to be able torepresent him, uh, in a way that really
does him justice and his family justice.
So that, like, it just immediatelybrought so much ease to the family.
And you saw kind of this weight gettaken off their shoulders 'cause.
(12:21):
It wasn't gonna be somelegal conversation.
This was just gonna bea human conversation.
And we ended up talking about his familyand talking about, you know, the things
that, you know, their, their memoriesof him, and this is how I approach every
single one of these meetings, is I justreally try to learn about the family
(12:42):
dynamic, the person that was lost.
And it's really toughbecause you have to balance.
The ongoing process of grief, what thisfamily's going through in that moment,
they're grieving with, you're also tryingto lay the foundation of a case, right?
You gotta, there's early steps you have totake in an investigation and you have to
(13:02):
do certain things to be sure that you havethe evidence that you need in the case.
So you're kind of shepherdingthem through both paths.
Um, but just being real and reallyjust trying to learn and not.
Getting too technical and justspending a good amount of time
learning about the human being.
Yeah.
Anybody watching or listening?
(13:22):
If you are a lawyer and you'rehandling these types of cases, while
you've probably done these similarcases before, this is the first and
only time this family's ever gonnago through something like this.
That's right.
That's right.
And you have to treat it that way.
Yeah.
You have to think of it that way.
Um, and what are some of those stepsthat you have to take from like.
The immediate legal side ofthings to preserve that evidence.
(13:44):
And then what are some things that youhave to help the family with that most
people don't realize that you haveto do when you have a case like this?
Yeah, so letters of preservation.
Immediately getting those out, making surethat we've got letters of preservation
on every single, you know, placethat may have some kind of evidence
that's gonna be important in the case.
Um, you know, making sure that we, youknow, we get investigators out to canvas
(14:05):
to get statements, witness statements, um.
And then, you know, with a lot ofthese wrongful death cases, this is
something that a lot of people don'tthink about but wanting to get, if,
if an autopsy was done by the countyand the coroner's office, okay, well
you have that first box checked, but.
Potentially having a second independentautopsy done to have your own,
(14:28):
you know, expert, your own, uh,pathologist, work through an autopsy.
That's important.
And yeah.
And sometimes there, there'sa race, like they do it before
they can ever find an attorney.
This happens all the time.
Yeah.
You know, and one thing that peopledon't understand is that in that process.
You're, you're bal again, it's like,you know, you're, you're balancing
two different things here, right?
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
evidence that you need for your case.
So you want to make sure thatyou're not embalming the body.
You wanna make sure that you're, you know,you're giving your, whoever's gonna do
the autopsy, that doctor an appropriateamount of time, and the opportunity
to be able to have the best shot.
(15:13):
At, at doing the autopsy correctlyand securing that evidence.
Yeah.
A lot of times, like, you know,
getting the deceased vessel,their body back across state
lines or even international Yeah.
Lines like, these are things that youjust don't, I mean, I remember when
I was a young lawyer and had a caselike that, I just had no idea that you
had to go through, like, you gotta gothrough the consulate to be able mm-hmm.
(15:35):
To do these things.
Mm-hmm.
I was like, wow, this is awhole different experience.
Yeah.
Um, but how often, like, I mean.
You seem to give open access tothese families that need you.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Would you say that?
Yeah, I think it's important.
Every single one of the familiesI represent, I mean, really almost
every client has my cell phone.
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.
Yeah.
I saw you out, you know, here at Justicehq and I saw you had a bunch of phones.
I was like, well, we have so many phones,but there's actually evidence it wasn't,
Robbie's not carrying burner phones.
Yeah, no, that was, thatwas, that was evidence.
That was a, a client's phone.
But you, you know, you, youhave to make yourself accessible
because if they, if clients feellike they're just a, a, a number.
(16:18):
Mm-hmm.
Right.
That's.
You're gonna lose that connectionthat you're trying to build.
I mean, I go, uh, I havebreakfast with clients.
I, I go, you know, I'll have lunch ordinner and I'll try to make a regular
effort to meet with them because I'm justtrying to build the human connection.
If we get to the end point and weeventually do get to trial, that's
(16:41):
gonna, that's like you're, you justputting money in the bank, right?
It's everything.
That's everything.
So, and you already know it sowell, and they know how to advocate
better for them and it's personal.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, Robbie, thanks for coming.
I know we have a lot of work todo immediately with Jaime's case.
Yeah.
Um, and know you have a bunchof trials coming up too.
Mm-hmm.
And having that balance.
But anybody watching or listening,especially if they know anything
(17:02):
about what happened, um, at theCannabis Farm that day at Class
House, reach out to Robbie.
Yeah.
You know, we're trying to.
Make sure everybody gets a clearunderstanding of what happened
before things could be fabricated.
We've seen these things happen allthe time where there just happens
to be no video and happens tobe no, all the evidence is gone.
I mean, that looks real bad,but, you know, which is why we're
trying to move as fast as we can.
Yeah, yeah.
(17:23):
You know, if anybody at the federalgovernment's watching just, you know,
publish the, the, the footage, thebody cam footage, body cam footage,
publish the, uh, the warrant, thewarrant, the judicial warrant.
I mean, if I would say if thingsare done accurately and like.
Just hand it over and then they'll, thatwould speeds up the process a a lot quick.
Yeah, it would be done, butum, that's what should be done.
(17:45):
We, we will see if that can be done.
But Robbie, thanks for coming on.
Always appreciate seeing you.
I mean, thank you.
We talk every day.
But yeah, seeing you inperson, you know, it's good.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me on.
Thanks for watching, listening tothis epi episode, the Justice Team
Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
Watch out to robbie@justiceteam.com.
It's Robbie with an I and anE and two B's, one R and an O.
That's right.
Thanks.
All right, thank you.
Hey, it's Bob Simon taking abreak to tell you about CallRail.
CallRail is a product that my firm uses,and what CallRail does is it plugs into
your phone calls with your intake and withyour clients to record those phone calls
as real time transcripts so you can getintelligence and with the attorney share.
Plugin, you can actually in real timebe able to send a referral out through
(00:23):
the marketplace to find the bestmatch all made possible with CallRail
being plugged into your firm's intakewith real intelligence CallRail.
Welcome to this episode of the JusticeTeam Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
I'm your host, Bob Simon, andtoday we have on the Justice
Team's partner trial lawyer.
(00:43):
Civil advocate.
I mean, you're like,everything mentor Robbie Munoz.
Thank you very much Bob.
Just trying to juggle it all andkeep it all in the air, but uh,
yeah, been busy and a lot of goodthings coming down the pipeline.
Yeah.
So some of the things we're gonnacover with today is Robbie's been
working on with the family of, um, ofan individual that, an undocumented
(01:04):
immigrant that was a worker that.
While he was there just towork, cannabis Farm got raided.
He wasn't supposed to be there that day.
Yep.
He ended up dying.
Yeah.
And uh, you wanna tell usabout Jaime a little bit?
Yeah, we'll, we'll talk about thisin this episode and we're also gonna
cover Robbie's in the living rooma lot with folks that unfortunately
suffered a wrongful death.
(01:25):
Something they didn't an.
I was gonna have to walk youthrough all the stuff that you
have to be ready to deal with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we do represent thefamily of, uh, Jaime LAIs.
Um, Jaime, as Bob mentioned, was workingat a, uh, cannabis farm, just kind
of going about his, his daily work.
Uh, there's also a tomato farm thathe used to work at that's connected
(01:49):
to this can cannabis farm, but.
Uh, while he's working, uh, icecomes onto the premises, kind of
causes pandemonium, causes panic.
People are, you know, very scared.
Um, and Jaime, at a certain point,ends up on top of a roof and there's
been, and this will take sometime, it'll eventually come out.
(02:10):
There has been some, uh,inaccurate facts about, you
know, what he was doing in Yeah.
And, and those arethings that we will find.
I mean, there's.
There's a warrant that was issued, right?
That's judicial warrant signedby a judge for specific reasons.
You're under the 14th amendment for.
You can't just do it because peopleare, are brown or speak Spanish, right?
(02:32):
Equal protections clause, right?
And then under the fourth AMEamendment, you have to do things
by executing that warrant, right?
You have to have probablecause, et cetera, et cetera.
So we'll see that.
And also they're supposed to have.
Cameras there.
Yeah.
Body cam camera.
So we should be able toget all this information.
Right?
Right.
We should have a good idea once westart putting these pieces together.
And that's in a case like this,that's the foundation, right?
(02:54):
Is trying to figure out, you know, whatcamera footage is there, what angles are,
you know, are those cameras positioned at,did they capture the incident occurring?
Um, eyewitness testimony here,it's a little bit more complicated
because you know the locationsof everyone since that raid.
Not as easy as going downdown the street or next door.
(03:14):
I think they took 320 some people.
Three 50 something.
Yeah, it was like right under three 50.
Wow.
350 people.
Yeah.
That were just uprooted that day.
Jaime unfortunately did not make itout of, out of that, um, out of that
incident, out of that raid, um, shortlyafter that, his family decided that it
was time to take him off life support.
(03:36):
But we're, we're working really fast.
We're laying the foundation, tryingto put the pieces together, really to
try to give answers to this family,to try to give this family some sense
of, of understanding, of peace in, inknowing exactly how this all occurred.
Uh, and then hopefully justice, right?
(03:57):
If there's a path forward to find justice.
That's, that's our goal.
If something went wrong, ifsomething was done improperly.
That needs to be brought out,that needs to come to light.
Um, and, and the perpetrators,whoever did something wrong,
they need to be held accountable.
You know, this is a case that'skind of easily summarized by
(04:17):
saying someone lost their life.
Someone's gotta answer for it.
Yeah.
In a situation like this, you wanna makesure it doesn't, doesn't happen again.
And people on both sides are protected.
Right.
Right.
You want to protect.
Folks that are executing, hopefullya valid war on for valid reasons.
Yeah, yeah.
If that's the way.
And for the people that arethere on the other side.
Right, exactly.
This shouldn't, exactly.
(04:37):
This shouldn't happen.
And I can't recall ever seeinganother human being lose their life
under a circumstance like this.
Yeah.
It was from all accounts.
Right now, and again, we'restill investigating, but from
all accounts it, it seemed like.
Uh, this, this whole process, theexecution of the warrant, this
(05:00):
raid, uh, it was pandemonium.
You know, it was a lot of fear.
There was a lot of, um, uncertainty onthat premises when this was happening.
And you had, you know, a lot offolks just in fear, you know, scared.
And you see like in, you know, I wasthinking about this today, like if
somebody came into my house and said.
(05:21):
And like we're taking you orgrabbing your children or with the US
government, like how do I know that?
Yeah.
And how do I see a warrant?
Like Yeah.
And you, there were some videos thatwere posted on social media where,
um, a civilian, those working, therewas actually an active military.
It was one of the security guards there.
Right.
It was well on videoasking for the warrant.
They wouldn't show 'em the warrant.
And um, and he got detained.
(05:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
American citizen.
Yeah.
We're seeing this insane.
This is, this is like.
I think this is part of the reason whywe feel so, so passionately about these
cases is because you, you've had just,you know, numerous, uh, videos that
are being circulated online right now.
You can see 'em anywhere.
You can just pull 'em up.
You've got people in mass that areshowing up places, masks that, uh,
(06:06):
are showing up to different placesand pulling people and grabbing
them, putting 'em in, in vehicles.
No identification, no information.
You have people all over trying tobe a voice to those being grabbed and
taken and they're not getting answers.
I mean, this is really scary stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And for, for me specifically, youknow, I, it, it strikes home, I grew
(06:32):
up in Santa Ana and, and a lot ofpeople don't know what Santa Ana is or
where it is, but, you know, Santa Anais, uh, it's home to, to my family.
And my community in SantaAna is largely Latino.
It is, uh, you know, a lot of immigrants.
And what really hit me was, you know,so I grew up boxing in Santa Ana,
(06:57):
as you know, and we've got a localboxing club that's done tremendous
work in this, in this community.
And it has been a, a safe haven forkids for the last 30 years trying to
prevent gang violence, gang involvement.
When you've got kids who are nowafraid to show up to their boxing
club, their afterschool boxingclub, because they don't know what's
(07:19):
gonna happen, and you've got parentswho won't drive them to the gym.
Now you're looking at a rippleeffect in the community, right?
You're looking at, this haslong-term ramifications.
You're taking away opportunitiesfor kids to feel safe, for kids to
engage in things that are keepingthem out of more troublesome Yeah.
Issues.
So, um.
(07:40):
That, that really struckhome for me because that's,
that's directly related to me.
I was getting phone calls fromthe club and if you go to any of
the, you know, swap beats or anylocal things, like, it's sad.
Yeah.
'cause nobody, nobody comes.
They're afraid.
Right.
And it's just, I mean, it has that
(08:00):
people don't feel safe and then peoplearen't supporting local businesses
because they're not out shopping.
They're afraid to go anywhere.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And I know people that are here.
Legally that are here,have a legal status.
Yeah.
And they're afraid to do anything.
Yeah.
Because of their skin color.
Absolutely.
Or because the way that theyspeak English, they have
an accent, they're afraid.
And, and, and, you know, I, this is whyI've always been such a big advocate
(08:22):
of, of history and we've seen a littlebit of, uh, an, an assault on history at
times, but I think it's really important.
And, and the Mendez Westminster caseis something that I teach to, to high
school students through abo a actually.
Um, yeah, I, I teachit every couple months.
There's a lesson that we share with,you know, probably 50 to a hundred
(08:46):
high school students, and we talk aboutsegregation in Orange County and how
ending segregation in Orange County wasthe precursor to Brown View Board and how
important that Landmark first case was,Mendez v Westminster, and then obviously
how important Brown V Board is, but.
I say that because you're seeingto some extent a repetition, right?
(09:08):
You're seeing certain themes come backto life here, uh, when we're going after
folks based on skin color, you know,origin, national origin, um, language.
Uh, so it is scary, but the morewe can teach other people, the more
we can share about our history.
I think that's the way we prevent this.
(09:29):
Yeah.
And you know, it's wild.
Like, you know, you watch a lot of showsthat, like I was watching this morning,
um, my daughters are in the Zombies, aDisney show and like the Descendants,
but there's one that Zombies won.
They segregated the school betweenthe zombies and regular kids.
It literally had a sign as theywalked in with a fence in the middle.
It said zombies and then regular kids.
And one of my daughters was just like,why would they treat people differently?
(09:52):
'cause they look different.
I was like, oh my god, you have no idea.
Like, those are zombies, but yeah.
Buckle, buckle up.
Yeah.
Lemme teach you about what happened, youknow, through, through American history.
Right.
But, um, the kids don't feel that way.
It's just like everybody's the same.
Yeah.
But you learn this trait to dothis for whatever reason later.
But if anybody's out there, they'rewatching or listening, how can
they get ahold of you if they knowanything about folks and corroborate.
(10:12):
Those facts about whathappened about that, Jaime?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, email is the bestway, robbie@justiceteam.com.
Uh, you can look me upon our firm's website.
I'm, I'm there.
Um, I'm, you know, always,you know, around you.
So anytime you need to get intouch with me, if you get in touch
with Bob, uh, that works too.
But Robbie at Justice teamdot com's, easiest way.
(10:34):
We got a long way togo on this, but mm-hmm.
You know, I'm hopeful thatwe'll be able to find some,
some very helpful information.
Yeah.
And just, I mean, right nowit's just about having answers.
Yeah.
And letting people know what they can do.
Um, well let's talk about the processthat you went through recently that you
do a lot with is, you know, wheneversomebody loses a, a loved one under
tragic circumstances and taken by veryunnatural ways, what are some of the
(10:56):
things that we should be treating thosefolks like, and what are some things that
you have to do that people don't realize?
This is part of.
When you're helping peoplewith those types of cases.
Yeah, so, uh, in a weird way, inmy time at SLG, I think I just kind
of, I don't know what, I got pulledin early on to some cases that
(11:17):
were connected to me by family orfriends and wrongful death cases.
And I kind of just built a little bit of aniche for, for connecting to those cases,
and it's really been that way ever since.
And I think that the most important thing.
And I try to walk into every singleone of these meetings the same way.
I try to focus on just reallyconnecting on a human level.
(11:39):
And, and, you know, one of the morerecent meetings was with his family.
And, uh, they asked me, well, what, what'sthe first thing you wanna talk about?
You know, what's, whatdo we, where do we start?
Was the question.
And my response was.
Tell me about Jaime.
Mm-hmm.
Tell me about his family.
Tell me about the human being that he was.
(11:59):
'cause if I don't know about who hewas as a person, none of this matters.
Right?
I have to know who he was to be able torepresent him, uh, in a way that really
does him justice and his family justice.
So that, like, it just immediatelybrought so much ease to the family.
And you saw kind of this weight gettaken off their shoulders 'cause.
(12:21):
It wasn't gonna be somelegal conversation.
This was just gonna bea human conversation.
And we ended up talking about his familyand talking about, you know, the things
that, you know, their, their memoriesof him, and this is how I approach every
single one of these meetings, is I justreally try to learn about the family
(12:42):
dynamic, the person that was lost.
And it's really toughbecause you have to balance.
The ongoing process of grief, what thisfamily's going through in that moment,
they're grieving with, you're also tryingto lay the foundation of a case, right?
You gotta, there's early steps you have totake in an investigation and you have to
(13:02):
do certain things to be sure that you havethe evidence that you need in the case.
So you're kind of shepherdingthem through both paths.
Um, but just being real and reallyjust trying to learn and not.
Getting too technical and justspending a good amount of time
learning about the human being.
Yeah.
Anybody watching or listening?
(13:22):
If you are a lawyer and you'rehandling these types of cases, while
you've probably done these similarcases before, this is the first and
only time this family's ever gonnago through something like this.
That's right.
That's right.
And you have to treat it that way.
Yeah.
You have to think of it that way.
Um, and what are some of those stepsthat you have to take from like.
The immediate legal side ofthings to preserve that evidence.
(13:44):
And then what are some things that youhave to help the family with that most
people don't realize that you haveto do when you have a case like this?
Yeah, so letters of preservation.
Immediately getting those out, making surethat we've got letters of preservation
on every single, you know, placethat may have some kind of evidence
that's gonna be important in the case.
Um, you know, making sure that we, youknow, we get investigators out to canvas
(14:05):
to get statements, witness statements, um.
And then, you know, with a lot ofthese wrongful death cases, this is
something that a lot of people don'tthink about but wanting to get, if,
if an autopsy was done by the countyand the coroner's office, okay, well
you have that first box checked, but.
Potentially having a second independentautopsy done to have your own,
(14:28):
you know, expert, your own, uh,pathologist, work through an autopsy.
That's important.
And yeah.
And sometimes there, there'sa race, like they do it before
they can ever find an attorney.
This happens all the time.
Yeah.
You know, and one thing that peopledon't understand is that in that process.
You're, you're bal again, it's like,you know, you're, you're balancing
two different things here, right?
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
evidence that you need for your case.
So you want to make sure thatyou're not embalming the body.
You wanna make sure that you're, you know,you're giving your, whoever's gonna do
the autopsy, that doctor an appropriateamount of time, and the opportunity
to be able to have the best shot.
(15:13):
At, at doing the autopsy correctlyand securing that evidence.
Yeah.
A lot of times, like, you know,
getting the deceased vessel,their body back across state
lines or even international Yeah.
Lines like, these are things that youjust don't, I mean, I remember when
I was a young lawyer and had a caselike that, I just had no idea that you
had to go through, like, you gotta gothrough the consulate to be able mm-hmm.
(15:35):
To do these things.
Mm-hmm.
I was like, wow, this is awhole different experience.
Yeah.
Um, but how often, like, I mean.
You seem to give open access tothese families that need you.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Would you say that?
Yeah, I think it's important.
Every single one of the familiesI represent, I mean, really almost
every client has my cell phone.
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.
Yeah.
I saw you out, you know, here at Justicehq and I saw you had a bunch of phones.
I was like, well, we have so many phones,but there's actually evidence it wasn't,
Robbie's not carrying burner phones.
Yeah, no, that was, thatwas, that was evidence.
That was a, a client's phone.
But you, you know, you, youhave to make yourself accessible
because if they, if clients feellike they're just a, a, a number.
(16:18):
Mm-hmm.
Right.
That's.
You're gonna lose that connectionthat you're trying to build.
I mean, I go, uh, I havebreakfast with clients.
I, I go, you know, I'll have lunch ordinner and I'll try to make a regular
effort to meet with them because I'm justtrying to build the human connection.
If we get to the end point and weeventually do get to trial, that's
(16:41):
gonna, that's like you're, you justputting money in the bank, right?
It's everything.
That's everything.
So, and you already know it sowell, and they know how to advocate
better for them and it's personal.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, Robbie, thanks for coming.
I know we have a lot of work todo immediately with Jaime's case.
Yeah.
Um, and know you have a bunchof trials coming up too.
Mm-hmm.
And having that balance.
But anybody watching or listening,especially if they know anything
(17:02):
about what happened, um, at theCannabis Farm that day at Class
House, reach out to Robbie.
Yeah.
You know, we're trying to.
Make sure everybody gets a clearunderstanding of what happened
before things could be fabricated.
We've seen these things happen allthe time where there just happens
to be no video and happens tobe no, all the evidence is gone.
I mean, that looks real bad,but, you know, which is why we're
trying to move as fast as we can.
Yeah, yeah.
(17:23):
You know, if anybody at the federalgovernment's watching just, you know,
publish the, the, the footage, thebody cam footage, body cam footage,
publish the, uh, the warrant, thewarrant, the judicial warrant.
I mean, if I would say if thingsare done accurately and like.
Just hand it over and then they'll, thatwould speeds up the process a a lot quick.
Yeah, it would be done, butum, that's what should be done.
(17:45):
We, we will see if that can be done.
But Robbie, thanks for coming on.
Always appreciate seeing you.
I mean, thank you.
We talk every day.
But yeah, seeing you inperson, you know, it's good.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me on.
Thanks for watching, listening tothis epi episode, the Justice Team
Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
Watch out to robbie@justiceteam.com.
It's Robbie with an I and anE and two B's, one R and an O.
That's right.
Thanks.
All right, thank you.
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