Help us bury our client and friend, Johnny Mungia
Donation protected
We are members of the legal team that represented Johnny Mungia for fourteen years before he died of multiple organ failure on March 16, 2021 at the age of 64. Johnny was a Yaqui Indian, and made a dying request to be buried, which he knew to be customary with his people. His family members cannot afford the costs of burial, so we have agreed to take responsibility for his remains and make sure his wishes are honored. Unfortunately, burial expenses are very high, and we are unable to afford these costs ourselves. We are hoping that, through donations from family, friends, and community members, we will be able to raise enough money to grant Johnny’s dying wish to be buried.
Johnny was innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced to death. There was an obvious, White alternate suspect who the police did not pursue though he was highly likely to have committed the crime. We were optimistic that Johnny would be granted a new trial because his original trial was unfair in violation of his constitutional rights. This optimism was validated when, in 2018, the California Supreme Court found that some of Johnny’s claims merited a hearing before a judge. Unfortunately, though he was a consummate survivor, Johnny did not live long enough to see these hopes realized.
Johnny endured a harrowing childhood and many years on death row, where he experienced hardships that would break most people: he lived with diabetes for many years, which led to renal and liver failure, which in turn necessitated dialysis three times a week for over fourteen years; he was bitten by a venomous spider in his cell and developed a wound that required hospitalization and led to permanent atrophying of the muscle in that leg; he was crippled in the same leg when it was improperly treated after he broke it in a fall from a prison van he was trying to board, in shackles, to be taken back to prison from the hospital after his treatment for the spider bite; his other leg was amputated when prison staff neglected to treat a gangrenous wound on that leg until it was too late to save the leg; and he miraculously survived a weeks-long bout of COVID-19 after prison officials negligently transferred a large group of infected men to San Quentin during the middle of the pandemic. Yet through all this, we witnessed and admired Johnny’s remarkable ability to remain positive and stay in touch with what made him happy, and his amazing and inspiring lack of any kind of bitterness about being at San Quentin or the other difficult experiences he endured.
Team members also remember Johnny’s friendship (he signed letters to us “your friend, and also client,” and thanked us “for being my friend”); his sweetness and kindness (Johnny was not afraid to tell the people he cared about that they were important to him; every time we visited he lifted himself out of his wheel chair as much as he could and give us big hug, and there was something sparkly and warm about him that we’ll always remember); and his love for oldies music and for food – even prison vending machine food and hospital food.
Through video calls placed by one of Johnny’s lawyers from his hospital room the day before he died, his whole team was able to talk to him one at a time, remind him of memorable times we’d shared, read to him, play oldies and Yaqui music for him, and just spend time with him. The team is grateful to have had this time with Johnny in the final hours before he passed away – he died just twelve hours after that visit ended. We already miss him terribly, and hope that we’ll be able to do right by him in death, as he so clearly did by us in life.
Thank you for any help you can give,
Andras, Gwen, Max, Patty, Shelley, and Tina (and also Johnny's longtime paralegal and friend Kevin, who passed away in 2018, and who we picture greeting Johnny in the next world with a big bowl of homemade chili)
Johnny was innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced to death. There was an obvious, White alternate suspect who the police did not pursue though he was highly likely to have committed the crime. We were optimistic that Johnny would be granted a new trial because his original trial was unfair in violation of his constitutional rights. This optimism was validated when, in 2018, the California Supreme Court found that some of Johnny’s claims merited a hearing before a judge. Unfortunately, though he was a consummate survivor, Johnny did not live long enough to see these hopes realized.
Johnny endured a harrowing childhood and many years on death row, where he experienced hardships that would break most people: he lived with diabetes for many years, which led to renal and liver failure, which in turn necessitated dialysis three times a week for over fourteen years; he was bitten by a venomous spider in his cell and developed a wound that required hospitalization and led to permanent atrophying of the muscle in that leg; he was crippled in the same leg when it was improperly treated after he broke it in a fall from a prison van he was trying to board, in shackles, to be taken back to prison from the hospital after his treatment for the spider bite; his other leg was amputated when prison staff neglected to treat a gangrenous wound on that leg until it was too late to save the leg; and he miraculously survived a weeks-long bout of COVID-19 after prison officials negligently transferred a large group of infected men to San Quentin during the middle of the pandemic. Yet through all this, we witnessed and admired Johnny’s remarkable ability to remain positive and stay in touch with what made him happy, and his amazing and inspiring lack of any kind of bitterness about being at San Quentin or the other difficult experiences he endured.
Team members also remember Johnny’s friendship (he signed letters to us “your friend, and also client,” and thanked us “for being my friend”); his sweetness and kindness (Johnny was not afraid to tell the people he cared about that they were important to him; every time we visited he lifted himself out of his wheel chair as much as he could and give us big hug, and there was something sparkly and warm about him that we’ll always remember); and his love for oldies music and for food – even prison vending machine food and hospital food.
Through video calls placed by one of Johnny’s lawyers from his hospital room the day before he died, his whole team was able to talk to him one at a time, remind him of memorable times we’d shared, read to him, play oldies and Yaqui music for him, and just spend time with him. The team is grateful to have had this time with Johnny in the final hours before he passed away – he died just twelve hours after that visit ended. We already miss him terribly, and hope that we’ll be able to do right by him in death, as he so clearly did by us in life.
Thank you for any help you can give,
Andras, Gwen, Max, Patty, Shelley, and Tina (and also Johnny's longtime paralegal and friend Kevin, who passed away in 2018, and who we picture greeting Johnny in the next world with a big bowl of homemade chili)
Organizer
Patricia Daniels
Organizer
San Francisco, CA