OK I was suppose to have court on Monday the 18th and I made arrangements with a lawyer that I would pay her on that Monday because I get paid on saturdays. But last week I received a letter from probation that there was an error on the date and I have to go to court on Friday the 15th. I told my lawyer and she will not represent me without paying her, so I tried to get in touch with a public defender all week and I have gotten no answer. I called my PO to explain and she said that if I come to court without a lawyer she will request for me to stay in jail until the next court date. Now how can I prevent from going to jail until the next court date. I am the sole provider of my son, wife, and her mother, if they lock me up I won't be able to get money for a lawyer and I will lose my job.

Why do you have to go to court? What sort of a hearing is this for?

That's the problem when you get into trouble with the law, they hold all the cards.

I don't know, what do you have that you could pawn?

Do you own a vehicle that you could get a title loan on?

How about a payday loan, unless your problem is related to some type of checking infraction.

Who do you know, that loves you enough to loan you the money?

What hours do you work now, how about showing up at labor ready or some temp service that pays you at the end of the day?

How about selling your plasma, it might be a start?

OK, I'm out of ideas.

Well I'm going for violation of probation. And no I can't pawn anything I rather go to jail. I worked to damn hard to give my family what we have for me to go and pawn it. They don't deserve that. No close family and the money I do have is to pay my mortgage on the 15th.

You do realize that pawning something, does not mean your family will do without it forever.

Unless you never plan to pay back the loan, and in that case, it would not be the pawn shops fault that you didn't get your stuff back.

It would seem that you have very few options, going without something until you get the money to pay back the loan is not so bad.

Ok, first understand you are just lucky at this point that you are not already sitting in a detention cell. Most of the time when the PO revolks your probation you are arrested, and held in jail till your hearing. So just the fact they are letting you just appear without being arrest is just lucky to start with.

And you are not paying your attorney till the court date, no time for the attorney to review the case, do some case law research, find a defense?? I mean the attorney showing up without any research is better I guess than no attorney but not much better.

You borrow, even use a payday loan for this if you have to ( and I hate those) you pawn your TV, your computer, sell blood, what ever it takes

Well I'm on probation for a disorderly persons charge, which holds up to 6 months in jail. But while waiting for court I spent 176 days in jail, but I still got one year probation. Then I violated on the last month of probation and my ty lawyer got me an additional year. So at the moment I have spent 176 days in jail and a year and 8 months for a charge that only holds up to 6 months in jail. What should I do? Shouldn't this be time served? And what will happen if I choose not to go to court until I can pay her on Monday?

If you choose to not go to court and miss tomorrow's hearing, they will come and get you and you will have to wait in jail for your hearing. This will make the judge extremely unhappy with you when you are before him again.