This morning I spend a couple of hours hanging out in the Redmond courthouse to contest a speeding ticket. I didn't get my act together enough to file for discovery so I couldn't put together a real defense. There appear to be two easy ways to beat a ticket around here. First the infraction might not have been filed on time. Second, your trail might not be speedy enough -- two months after the infraction, I think. Neither of these applied to me so I ended up getting a deferred finding (a sort of probation).
While I probably could have done this via mail, it was enlightening to watch how things work. First, your trial doesn't get scheduled really. You are grouped with all of the other cases to be covered that morning. You sit there from the beginning of the session until your name comes up. The judge presiding this morning worked it such that the actual lawyers got to go first and the rest of us schmoes representing ourselves go after that. It was interesting to see how much time it really took the lawyers to beat a case. It mostly was about finding a loophole and arguing it. The judge has some discretion as to how to interpret things but most of it is cut and dried.
The thing that really surprised me was that by the time my case came up there were no lawyers in the room. This included the prosecutor. I think it really sucks that you can be tried for an infraction without a prosecuting attorney even present. To me it is a slap in the face that the state wants to extort money out of me (via the traffic ticket) without even bothering to have somebody there to personally do the extorting. At least the mafia comes and collects in person. Apparently this has been fought over and gone to the Supreme Bourt (at least that is what the judge said) but I don't have the time to really dig in to it.
In any case, I would urge everyone to contest a ticket just once to see how it all works. Or just show up in Redmond courthouse courtroom two any morning and sit and watch.