Municipal Court of Seattle

This review is specifically for coming in for a parking ticket contesting.
Like many of us surely have, we’ve come back to our cars to see a ticket stuck under the wipers. Followed by a bit of profanity and maybe a firm door slam, we (usually) just eat it and pay the ticket that we deserved. However, on one such occasion I believed my ticket to be unjust and requested a pre-​trial hearing to contest it.
On the second floor of the Seattle Municipal Court is room 201, an eerily DMV-​like room with people waiting in chairs and a monitor indicating the names of those to be sentenced. Be sure to sign in at the computers to your left so you’re added to the queue. Though my scheduled time was for 10:30, they seem to take people as they have signed in. I was about 15 minutes early and probably only waited 5 or 10. When they call your name, you go into the back offices, where a Judge will speak to you face to face in a private room.
I’ll say right out, the outcome was in my favor. The judge seemed genuinely empathetic to my plight as I told him the facts as I saw them. Though I was technically incorrect about my assessment of the situation, he did let me know about the laws in place as to help me not make the same error again. (If there’s construction occurring somewhere, be sure to check the ENTIRE block for a «no parking» sign, as they officially only need one and it can be all the way at one end and say something like «no parking [direction] of here». don’t really agree with that one, but that’s the way it is) So all that being said, he understood where I was coming from and changed my ticket to a warning. I thought he was fair and I appreciated that he took the time to explain things for something as trivial as a parking ticket.
I’d say I’d gladly return, but I actually hope I never have to return.