Wheels Off - Literally

Wheels off moments in Jacksboro this morning. On the docket for a first appearance was a court appointed client of mine who was coming up from Huntsville (no jokes, please.) I got an odd courtesy call from Jacksboro PD while I was in the district clerk's office prior to court: My client had been arrested on a "bond withdrawal" warrant. Translation: She had bonded out of jail after her initial arrest but the bondsman got ticked off (normally for falling behind on payments) and then "went off the bond" which requires a warrant to be issued. So she drives hours to go to her court appearance in Jacksboro only to get stopped near the courthouse square and gets arrested. Did the cops know to be on the look out for her? I'm not sure. Normally you just wait for them to walk into court and then let the bailiff handled it with no fuss. What is very odd is that at least three different people (one from law enforcement) told me that her car had been repo'd. Not towed to a lot and impounded for the cops, but repo'd by a private finance company. I'm trying to figure out exactly how a repo man can find out about a traffic stop and tow a car all before 9:00 a.m. in the morning. To makes matters worse, her boyfriend - whom I have never met - finds me in the courthouse to tell me about his huge problem. He just rode to court with the newly arrested gal and now he was stuck in Jacksboro with no transportation. He asked me where the bus station was. After checking around, I had the joy of telling him, "there is no bus station." I think I saw the life force get sucked out of him at that moment. So later I'm sitting around in court on other matters when the deputies bring in this nicely dressed woman in handcuffs and sit her on a bench. I exchange glances of "who is that?" with the court administrator and we finally figure out it's my gal who just got arrested! (That's a new one for me: A person gets arrested on the morning of their court date only to make it to court in time.) I went and talked to her and we entered a plea of not guilty. (It was a dope case, by the way.) She was worried about her job and was admittedly confused about her situation - She bonded out, had paid most of the bond fee, and now gets arrested after driving hours to be in court. The bond, after all, was to secure her appearance in court. She's proven she'll show up in court - if we'll let her. After some discussions with the DA and the judge, we got her out of jail on a new bond and a new court date. That was a heck of a morning for her. I just hope she can find a way back home now that she doesn't have a car.