Zachar said he takes as many appointments as he can because he feels an obligation to protect the "poorest among us." The petition, which Zachar said he agrees with, argues that more lawyers are less willing to accept cases at $40 an hour, an amount that does not even cover overhead. Some of the defendants are unequivocally innocent, but because they are poor they will wait in jail everyone else." Witnesses aren't interviewed, evidence isn't preserved, and the lives that these defendants are fighting to preserve fade while they sit in jail. They plead for bond reductions and try to explain that they are losing their jobs, their homes, and their families while they wait on an attorney.
"These same defendants appear week after week without counsel. SPD makes the appointments when the office has excessive caseloads or conflicts of interest. Zachar wrote in support of a petition asking the Supreme Court to increase to $100 per hour the $40 per hour rate paid to lawyers appointed by the State Public Defender's Office (SPD) who represent clients who cannot afford to hire a laywer. "Every week I watch the same shackled defendants shuffle to the podium in an orange jail uniform so they can hear the circuit judge give them them the same speech about the Sixth Amendment right to counsel superseding their statutory right to preliminary hearings, bond hearings, and the overall progress of their cases," ," Zachar wrote to the State Supreme Court. court session every day just for inmates waiting to get an appointed lawyer, according to defense lawyer Chris Zachar.
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