Fighting the ticket and winning (sort of)

This is Ontario-centric, but probably applies almost anywhere in throry.

Ontario has soemthing called the "Provincial Offenses Act" under which most municipalitiies issue parking, driving and by-law infractions, plus the OPP uses for their tickets. Essentially, it means that local governments don't have to set up their own collection agency to go after dead-beat ticket holders, and there's a common set of rules governing how to pay them or protest.

You have three options:
1)Plead guilty and pay the fine in whole by sending in a cheque to the given address on the back.
2) Go down to the local court house and see a Justice of the Peace, pleading guilty with an explanation in the hopes of getting a reduced fine.
3) File for a court date and go to trial. (What Ticket-Busters and other companies do for you....)

Short story: I got nailed for dog-off-leash and was issued a $250 ticket (plus victim surcharge of $50).

I did some research and found that the by-law under which I was being charged does not have a schedule of fines for various offenses, but simply a cap of $5000 (not sure if that's per incident or per charge, probably the latter.) Some more research gave me a number of towns or cities where they posted the dog-off-leash fines (major cities are more than small towns) but mine was right up there at the top of the pile.  I decided to do option B and see what happened.

Most JofP sessions are time-limited. Mine was a one-hour session Monday through Friday, with no guarantee that everyone would get in and plead their case. 

ME? I got to the court at 8AM for a 9AM-10AM window. First in line to see His Honour.  At 9:20, he opened the door and called my name. I went in to his office.  Everything is tape-recorded. I was repeatedl;y asked during the session that I knew that I was pleading guitly to the offense. I was also asked for my explanation and was told the short-comings of my evidence (I didn't print anything) as well as what I should be doing if I felt that the fine was too much (essentially proposing to the town that the by-law needed to be revised). I told what I did and why, plus the sequence of events (making sure that no one else was around, early hours, etc.)

After twenty minutes of sweating over everything, His Honour pulls out another ticket form and starts to fill it in.  "I think that you did everything you could to control the situation and that the fine didn't take that into account. I'm reducing it to $50 plus surcharge and fees."

I walked out of the court $65 lighter in the bank account not the $300 that I thought that I'd be paying. Well, theat $235 that I won't be spending on the ticket.

If I have to do this again, I know what to do and will be a lot more prepared.

Things to remember if you're going to do this.....
1) Do your research so that you can prove your case. If you think that the fine is way beyond what it should be, prove it through research on what comparable fines are.  PRINT OUT THE RESULTS OF YOUR RESEARCH TO SHOW THE JofP. This includes aerial shots from Google or MapQuest to show what happened where.
2) Print out the law or by-law under which the charge is being made, showing the fines area.
3) Get there bright and early and try to be in the first few people queueing up.