The point of my long post was that the requirement to establish a valid mandate and one which every driver must obey was satisfied under the law... If you're willing to risk the chance that a judge might misconstrue your stating that you are usually attentive and yet this time you were about to "take out an officer" because you were inattentive... I am not sure how that will likely work in your favor!
In other words, there is nothing in the code that implies any sort of leniency under the circumstances existing at the time. One sign indicating two left lanes are left turn lanes... Any driver must obey the direction of such a sign. By your same analogy which you posted following this line, you seem to indicate that you follow the direction of the lane you might find yourself in at the time... Well, in this case, you did not do so.
And in this case, having found yourself in a left turn lane, and yet you continued straight contrary to the direction of the sign, does not fit within your claim that you usually let whatever sign happens to dictate the movement from your lane dictate which way you proceed.
Conversely, rather than being able to tell what lane you are in based on the striping on the road, you should decide which direction you are headed and then decide which lane you should be in.
In this case, you did the opposite. You found yourself in a turn lane and are trying to justify going straight from that lane.
Still, I cannot dictate what every judge should feel. If you think you are justified in making such an argument, then by all means make it and hope the judge buys it. I think you would be taking a good risk especially when it is my understanding that -assuming both these violations were written on the same notice to appear- that a single traffic school program completion would take care of concealing both violations. But don't quote me on that, you'll have to check with the DMV for confirmation.
It is marked in your pictures... Is it not? Whether striping was or was not marked at the time is a subjective statement. I say it was sufficiently marked for a reasonably attentive driver to recognize his location as far as lanes are concerned. Not even the MUTCD could help you define proper striping... (Remember, not even actual MUTCD figures are to imply a regulation, only a preference)... But even if it could, you clearly realized that only one car width would fit to your left. Had you noticed the sign (which indicated a mandatory movement) like you should have, you could have easily deduced that you were in the second left turn lane.

