Adam Reposa Can’t Beat the Rap

Bombastic DWI attorney Adam Reposa is currently in custody of the Travis County Sheriff's Office, held in solitary confinement after being found guilty on five charges of contempt of court last month for defying a court order issued in March by County Judge Nancy Hohengarten. (She found him to be both defiant and disrespectful to the gathered jury and the court.) On Sept. 20, Reposa was sentenced to 180 days in jail by Hon. Paul Davis, the retired judge of the 200th District Court brought back to oversee the case. His attorneys filed a motion requesting a personal recognizance, which Davis denied on Oct. 2.

Things got sort of wild after that: Davis issued an order for Reposa to turn himself in to TSCO, but apparently never served Reposa with that order. Reposa skirted off to Williamson County, where he filed a motion for leave and stay of sentence with that county's 368th District Court, pending a hearing. Judge Rick Kennon granted the motion and issued Reposa a personal recognizance bond on Monday, Oct. 2. Reposa and I spoke on the phone the following Thursday: He said he'd been effectively swept out of Travis County until TCSO published a warrant, and that Davis had ordered that office to not do so. Reposa was arrested outside of a WilCo YMCA on Friday, Oct. 6 – picked up by Williamson County deputies at the behest of Travis County and brought to a county courtroom for a hearing, which he sat through in his workout clothes, blue mesh shorts and a white T-shirt. TCSO deputies whisked him away to the county jail from there.

This is not the first time Reposa has gone to jail for being held in contempt of court, and his reputation as a bothersome figure around the local criminal justice circuit is well-documented. Nevertheless, legal experts herald him as one of the more effective DWI attorneys in the city, and fellow defense attorneys have banded together in his defense. More than 100 have signed a letter alleging unfair treatment and abuse of government officials (particularly Davis and Robert Chody, the Williamson County sheriff), and at 11am today, Oct. 12, they plan to gather outside the county jail Downtown for a press conference in Reposa's defense. "The extreme punishment imposed on Adam Reposa will certainly have a chilling effect on our defense bar and our clients, in that it seeks to prevent defense lawyers from providing zealous representation of their clients," said David Schulman, an attorney now part of the Ad Hoc Committee to Free Adam Reposa. "This cannot be allowed to stand."