I need help with 1st courtroom scene (Spoilers!)

Hi -

WARNING - LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW!

OK, I have seen this great little film twice now (the second time with audio commentary) but I still don't fully understand the first courtroom scene...

So Joe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is led to what seems to be a courtroom. He appears before what he thinks is a judge, and then heads to the train station to leave town. Then, right before he is about to get on the train, he happens to learn that Waterford does not have a courthouse, heads back to town, and finds the real court hearing. We also see that the first courtroom was a fake, apparently set up by the local theatre group. At some point Ann (the librarian) tells him something like "I thought you needed to get it out of your system"

So...

1. Was the fake courtroom set up by the movie company in order to have Joe think he had testified and then be unavailable for the real hearing? That makes story sense to me, but suggests they would have had to also have bribed some of the local officials, and it seems unlikely they would have simply let Joe walk to the train station, rather than having a limo or something immediately drive him back to Boston or wherever to get him out of the area. (And even if Joe was not present for the "real" hearing, that would not have been they end of the case. It would have been delayed until Joe could be located and subpoenaed to testify.)

2. Or, was the fake courtroom set up as a practice run by Ann, as her dialog and association with the local theatre group suggests. But in that case, why would they simply let him walk to the train station to leave town afterward.

Or is there another explanation I am missing? Help, please!


And finally, one other quibble - it seemed unrealistic near the end that there was no attempt at negotation about the $800,000 payoff / bribe. Maybe he would have taken $200,000 Maybe he would have wanted more. I just thought that was unrealistic, given that the money was coming from a film producer who would be accustomed to negotiations over money on a regular basis.

- TWR