The judge is the one who determines what's "proof". In the story, he decided that name & birthdate was enough to not dismiss the case. She could have hired a lawyer and spent time fighting the case and maybe won, but she wanted to get it resolved immediately and a guilty plea is the only way to do that.

City wants money. If it isn't this person, then the chance of them getting money goes way down. So they have a perverse incentive to force this person to pay, regardless if it is them or not, as long as the person isn't willing to fight a legal battle that ends up costing more money (if few enough people fight the legal battle, it may be more profitable to let them win their fights and keep charging all the people who don't fight). This is the problem letting the same the same entity that decides a punishment benefit from that punishment.

The author breezed over a potentially important part:

> I had never been to any other kind of court except traffic court (at which, both times, the police officers had flat-out lied).

Reading into that it sounds like they had name, birthday, and the issuing officer saying, "yes, that was her".

If the officers can't reliably witness they shouldn't be a part of the process. There should be enough records taken at the time of the ticket that the officers unreliable testimony shouldn't be needed or used.

For crimes, yes. That would probably have to happen at trial though.

For traffic infractions, probably not.