Recently, the following sticker appeared on several Austin businesses during the popular South by Southwest festival:

A Texas state representative shared the photo from one shop on her Facebook page and threatened to put the shop “out of business”:

Some jokes just are not funny. If this is a joke at all, it is tasteless. Pardon mon française mais, I will be damned if this will occur in my House Disrtict, disrtict 46 on my watch on 12th St. in this historical Black Community or any community. This morning, I have been in communication with the City Managers office, APD, PIO, et. al. This is NOT sponsored by the City of Austin and ACM Anthony Snipes is on top of it, all over it. Until then, refrain from supporting Unique Trends until “some explaining” is done. If the explanation is unbelievable …. They need to be put out of business, ASAP!

To regular observers of such stories, what happened next will come as little surprise. The person who put the stickers on the businesses turned out to be . . . a social justice warrior:

Now, a criminal defense attorney, Adam Reposa, is claiming he is responsible for the stickers.

In a YouTube video, a shirtless Reposa appears to be explaining why he placed the stickers on the windows of stores in front of one of the stores he vandalized. In the video, Reposa says the reason why he put the stickers in the store is “pretty clear”: “this area of town is turning into whites only.”

Reposa also reveals that he is upset that people focused on the use of the word “colored” rather than the message of his stickers.

These businesses had their names spread all over the Internet as being potentially racist. I hope they are considering a lawsuit against the lawyer, at a minimum. And Rep. Dukes owes the businesses an apology.

When I checked her Facebook page this morning, I could find no such apology.

[Guest post by DRJ]

It’s not often that two unrelated posts come together but I think I’ve found an example.

Last week I posted on an Austin case in which “Austin defense lawyer Adam Reposa tarnished the dignity of the judicial process by making a lewd gesture in court.” As a result a judge sentenced Reposa to 90 days in jail for contempt of court.

In late March 2008 I posted on a Fifth Circuit case from Austin in which “the family of a teenage girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met on MySpace.com asked a federal appeals court … to revive their lawsuit against the social networking Web site.”

Friday the Austin-area man in the MySpace case was sentenced to jail for injury to a child in connection with his sexual assault of the 14-year-old girl he met at the internet site:

“A Buda man accused of sexually assaulting a then-14-year-old Bowie High School student after meeting her on MySpace pleaded guilty Friday to injury to a child under a plea bargain that calls for him to spend 90 days in jail.

Pete Ignacio Solis was 19 in 2006 when he met the girl on the popular online social networking site. His lawyer contends that Solis did not force the girl, younger than the legal age of consent in Texas, to have sex. “

In addition to the Austin nexus, there’s another link between the two cases:

“With the deal, Solis avoided mandatory sex offender registration for the rest of his life.

“I am frustrated that consensual teenage sex winds up with a sex offender registration” for seven years, said Solis’ lawyer, Adam Reposa.”

Oh, and one more interesting convergence: Both Solis and Reposa were sentenced to 90 days in jail.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

An Austin, Texas, lawyer has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for contempt after making an obscene gesture in court last month that he claimed was directed at “ruthless prosecutors” and not the judge:

“Saying that Austin defense lawyer Adam Reposa tarnished the dignity of the judicial process by making a lewd gesture in court last month, visiting state District Judge Paul Davis today sentenced Reposa to 90 days in jail for contempt of court.

Reposa, 33, was led from the courtroom at the Heman Sweatt Travis County Courthouse in handcuffs. He whispered to his lawyer and other defense lawyers in attendance about filing an appeal. He told reporters Davis’ punishment “was fair.”

A day earlier after a more than four-hour hearing, Davis found Reposa in contempt for making a gesture simulating masturbation while standing before County Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland during a pretrial hearing March 11. Breland testified that Reposa rolled his eyes and looked at her while motioning with his right hand near the front of his waist. Reposa said the gesture came from near his hip and was aimed at a prosecutor. They were discussing plea negotiations in a driving while intoxicated case.”

Reposa apologized but also attempted to justify his behavior:

“[Judge] Davis noted that Reposa, when testifying in Tuesday’s hearing, fluctuated between apologizing for offending Breland to justifying his behavior as that of a zealous defender taking on ruthless prosecutors in the county attorney’s office.

“In other words,” Davis said, “you weren’t accepting responsibility.”

The Travis County attorney’s office presented Breland’s case against Reposa. First Assistant County Attorney Randy Leavitt argued in a closing argument that Reposa’s gesture was the latest and worst of a string of offensive behavior by the lawyer. Reposa has called prosecutors vulgar names in court, he said.

Defense counsel offered a good analysis of Reposa’s behavior:

“Reposa’s defense lawyer Carlos Garcia, who didn’t attempt to justify Reposa’s behavior, suggested that Davis sentence Reposa to one day in jail.

“No lawyer has the right . . . to go into a courtroom and do what you did,” Garcia said during closing arguments. “This is crazy.”

I think this case shows an attorney can be overly zealous.

UPDATE 4/17/2008: After 8 hours in custody, Reposa was released from jail pending appeal.

— DRJ