I first overheard people talking about this as a kid regarding speeding tickets of all things. Given the gravity of their effect on your license demerits and resulting escalating increases in insurance rates, I was given the impression that it’s essential to show up to court and at least take a swing at contesting fines/charges. In keeping with the baseball analogy, it’s sometimes enough just to bunt, i.e. show up and hold the bat, as officers are frequently scheduled on duty when whatever applicable hearing is held. Apparently it’s enough simply to show up, given that they’ve fucked off to do something ‘more important’ instead of arranging the morning/afternoon away with their CO’s ahead of time. For more serious charges, the lesson applies doubly, the pricks will go out of their way to derail your entire life for spite. Always fight it, always, always, always. The stakes are just too high to plead out.

To add insult to injury, they frequently deliberately waste the court’s time as a tactic to overtax the defendant’s financial resources. Making shit up serves to apply additional restrictions, bail, and possibly house arrest, assuming that the person targeted isn’t broke and has their life ruined by sitting in lockup until the first hearing (fewer and fewer people have the resources to accommodate housing expenses, let alone all of their other personal/financial obligations in the meantime, and wind up unemployed & homeless). Fabricating spurious charges has been a weapon used by police and the courts for aeons, if the pigs in L.A. weren’t still pulling this shit, I’d be shocked.