When I used to work in a prosecutor’s office, in a situation like this where the person has a clean record and comes in for an expired license, as long as you renewed the license before your court date, we would just dismiss the charges as long as you’re respectful of the court and the process. Dress well. If court opens at 9:00 a.m., get there at 8:30 a.m.

You will see defense attorneys milling about. You could ask one of them where to go to talk to a prosecutor. Usually prosecutors would start calling cases at 8:30 a.m. to make deals and see what defenses people are going to raise before the judge began calling the docket.

Just talk about how squeaky clean your record is and how you didn’t know your license was expired, how you went and got it renewed as soon as you found out, and you’d appreciate it if they’d dropped on your promise never to meet again.

I assume this is not for a trial appearance. This is a preliminary proceeding. Procedure may be completely different in your state.

I am not your lawyer.