Always ask for a Public Defender -if there's any kind of plea bargain down
from the original charge it's free -and in Traffic Court at least -it really
doesn't matter how innocent you are or how much proof you have -
the Judge and the Prosecutor are a well oiled team -it's two against
one and you need to even the odds.

My Public Defender got the charges dropped to $50 and for (1)
year I can't get caught driving without a license or no insurance -
I said thank you so much and took the deal because I was smart
enough to know this is not a fair system -they would fine Jesus $40
and Ronald Reagen $45 if either of them set foot in Traffic Court
so I figured if an innocent tranny can walk out paying $50 on  a
$200 ticket (and $50 is the entire cost -it includes the Public Defender
fees the court costs, etc everything -like I said I said "thank you so much!"
to my Public Defender and took the deal - now I have to borrow $50
but it's a lot better than $200 or more - so I'm very happy

Always ask for a Public Defender!
I watched several pleas and everything is pleas to avoid an actual court
date, and from what I saw time after time the judge waived the
Public Defenders fee (an enticement to settle before a trial obviously)
so - the Prosecutor and Public Defender will talk and it's free
the Prosecutor won;t talk to you personally or as happened to me
he'll try to screw you because he can, and be rude about it in the process
so seriously The Public Defender is basically a free service
you're a complete idiot if you don't take advantage of a free lawyer

The other thing I noticed was that as lot of the sentences had minimal
monetary fines that were actually collected  ($100, $200) and much
of the monetary fines were either waived or offender was forced
to work several days - so the State of Minnesota has a pretty good
forced labor operation - if you figure $10/hr x 10 hrs =$100.00
a days labor really isn't worth that much -but if you figure that you
can replace one highly trained government worker (earning say
$45,000 per year  with additional benefits for a total of $80,000/yr)
with a steady stream of  incompetent traffic violaters, well that makes
sense.

so one reason why your local government (or at least the Edina MN
city government)doesn't need to hire as many workers is because
of the steady supply of  forced labor provided by Traffic Court

I had no idea

PS I wore my black dress and afterwards went to a clothes closet
for some free clothes and a guy was commenting behind me how she
looked really nice in a wolfish sort of way  - I  ignored them :)
After that I went to Como Park and walked around a bit to celebrate
that I was still a free girl and not serving 20 days on the Edina Chain Gang!
Then I asked my mom for $50.00 (bummer)