There are two traffic courts. Try to be in the one for rich people.

[cthulu2016]

19. The judge was a former cop

Reckless driving 20 miles over speed limit is a subjective call the citing policeman makes.

And believe me, nobody representing themselves gets anything but the max here. Having seen a few iterations of the court session for people without lawyers, the judges resent them.

That same day I saw the same judge uphold a moving violation against a driver (some vague "disorderly driving" type catch-all ticket) because a passenger in his back seat flipped off a cop. Seriously.

We are not talking about a local system where what should happen has much meaning.

My lawyer didn't "do" anything except show up and know the prosecutor, but I was not convicted of a class 1 misdemeanor and perhaps losing my license for a year. I don't give a damn about the speeding ticket one way or another. The point was to avoid conviction for a real crime.

And that was accomplished.

Could I have accomplished that on my own? Maybe so. I don't know. (I do know that my personal experiences with pleading my case to authority have not always been optimal.)

The system is legal indirect bribery through certified intermediaries, hence my complaints, but if that is the system (as it sure appears to be in my county!) then one would be a fool to not get the intermediary. (In a case where the downside of conviction is intolerable.)