OOC: [background]
Miles Edgeworth was born in 1992, the only son of defence attorney Gregory Edgeworth and his then wife.
Miles had a rather solitary childhood due to events in his early life, including the death of his mother. When he and his father settled in the house in Los Angeles and Gregory went into practice on his own, Miles continued to eschew friends in favour of books and developed a view of his father that bordered on hero-worship. His one ambition as a child was to follow in Gregory's footsteps and become a great defence attorney. Consequently most of his time was devoted to school work and trying to please his father.
But his life changed considerably in fourth grade on the day that his lunch money was stolen from his school bag during a gym lesson. One of the other more solitary boys in his class, Phoenix Wright, was accused of the crime and a class trial was convened with the teacher presiding. As the trial went on and Phoenix became more and more distressed, Miles became correspondingly more angry. He didn't really know Phoenix, and he didn't know who had stolen his money, but there was one thing he had learned very clearly from his father - that you could not convict someone of a crime if you lacked any evidence to prove they committed it. And the moment he thought it he was on his feet, finger pointing at the teacher's desk and his voice ringing out clearly around the room. "OBJECTION!". It was an uncharacteristic act for Miles, and he was shaking as he did it, but receiving back up from an unexpected source - the class ne-er do well, Larry Butz - buoyed him up. Miles told the class to leave Phoenix alone and stop accusing him of a crime that they had no proof he had ever committed. As a result, the trial was abandoned.
From that point on, the three boys were virtually inseparable for the rest of that school year, the long summer vacation and the beginning of fifth grade. Phoenix and Miles were particularly close, Phoenix never forgetting that Miles had believed in him when the rest of the class thought he was guilty.
Sadly, it was not to last. On the 28th December, Miles accompanied his father to court to watch a trial in which Gregory was defending. It was a bitter courtroom battle, Gregory's opponent, the celebrated Manfred Von Karma, using every means at his disposal to preserve his perfect record as a prosecutor. Ultimately Gregory lost, but he did succeed in having Von Karma censored by the judge for his behaviour in court and directly after the trial he was advised by the Chief Prosecutor that a penalty would be issued.
Meanwhile, Gregory collected Miles from the spectator's gallery, the last two to leave, and together with the bailiff - Yanni Yogi - whose job it was to ensure the court was clear, they caught an elevator to the parking garage. But before they could complete the trip of no more than a handful of floors, Los Angeles suffered an earthquake that cut the power in the courthouse and caused the elevator to halt, apparently stuck between floors. The occupants were plunged into darkness, the weak emergency light providing the only illumination as the elevator shook underfoot. Miles was terrified, but as his father tried to calm him, Yogi also started to become hysterical. Rescue had failed to occur and as the air began to thin, panic and claustrophobia caused him to behave irrationally. An attempt by Gregory to calm the man led to a scuffle and in the darkness there was a loud shot followed by a blood-curdling scream, which was the last thing Miles could remember hearing before the lack of air finally took its toll and he passed out.
When he awoke in hospital, he received the news that his father had been shot dead in the elevator and Yogi arrested for the crime. Unfortunately he suffered complete memory loss regarding the period of time after the earthquake struck, and even when questioned by police he remembered little other than the argument between his father and Yogi, and the gunshot and the scream. His memories of his life in Los Angeles were also affected, and he was detained in hospital indefinitely, having no known family to take him in save for an elderly and infirm great aunt.
Still in a state of half-fugue, Miles testified at the trial, which ended in disarray after Yogi was found not guilty of murder by reason of temporary insanity and Misty Fey, the spirit medium who had channelled Gregory's spirit and accused Yogi, was discredited forever. Her failure was to leave a deep impression on Miles that prejudiced him against sprirt mediums for almost two decades.
A few months later, Manfred Von Karma visited Miles in hospital with the permission of Miles' great aunt, and offered Miles the opportunity to move to Germany and become his protege. In return, all Miles had to do was give up his desire to become a defence attorney in favour of prosecution and promise to study to the best of his ability. Reminders if his duty and promises of gaining justice in the future for his father's death were persuasive, and he accepted. But his father's murder would hang over him for many more years, manifesting itself not only in a deathly fear of elevators and earthquakes and an aversion to firearms, but also in more insidious ways.
Shortly after moving to Germany, the nightmares began. Miles relived the moment of his father's death almost every night, remembering additional details in which Yogi's gun landed at his feet and he picked it up and threw it across the elevator in an attempt to stop Yogi from attacking his father. This, along with the memory of the gunshot, was enough to convince Miles that he, himself, had been the murderer of his father, and the guilt and self-hatred over that act began to eat into his thoughts.
For fifteen years Miles studied under Manfred Von Karma, first privately tutored, then at university under his guidance. Manfred's daughter, Franziska, was his study companion and the two competed with each other for his attention and for his approval, striving to attain the perfection that he required of them. Von Karma was the perfect authority figure, and Miles submitted to his teaching completely, absorbing his lessons about winning at all costs; about how all witnesses and all defendants lie; about how all defence attorneys were charlatans. Whenever he began to doubt, he had only to remember his nightmares, and the day that he himself had stood up in court and lied to a judge at the trial of Yanni Yogi.
By the time Miles returned to Los Angeles to attend law school and launch his career at the prosecutor's office, the only thing left to show that he once had been the son of Gregory Edgeworth was his name, which Manfred had insisted he kept. In all other respects Manfred owned him completely, and that was obvious to anyone within seconds of encountering him. Miles' hero-worship even went so far as to imitate Von Karma's courtroom manner and his mode of dress
His first trial at age 20 ended in tragedy when the defendant, Terry Fawles, committed suicide in the dock. Miles' relentless attacks on both Fawles and Mia Fey, the attorney defending him, earned him the nickname “The Demon Prosecutor” from the media. The name would dog him for the next four years as his reputation spread, and he became known for his aggressive and underhanded courtroom tactics. There was even talk of forged evidence and over time, the stress of his work, the dreams that hampered his ability to sleep, and the nature of his actions in court began to take their toll on his health, both mental and physical. But he continued on regardless, the burning desire to please his mentor and to see “justice” driving him forward. This was increasingly fuelled by his own conviction that he had murdered his own father and a growing contempt for his own cowardice in not owning up to the crime.
He was at his lowest ebb in 2016 when he took on a case prosecuting spirit medium Maya Fey for the murder of her sister, the defence attorney Mia Fey. Facing him from the defence bench was his old school friend, Phoenix Wright, who had made attempts to contact him in the past. But the similarities of the case to the circumstances of his father's death and the involvement of the Fey family made him pursue it more ruthlessly than ever. He barely even noticed Wright, and in fact charged the man himself for the murder, citing lack of evidence otherwise. The bitter courtroom battle was the lowest point in his legal career, and had Redd White not confessed to the crime in the dock, he would have seen his childhood friend convicted without a second thought. As it was, Phoenix handed him his first defeat, smashing his perfect record and giving Miles some bitter food for thought.
The next time they met in court, things took a different turn. This time, Miles began to doubt his case, and provided the means for Phoenix to prove his own, suffering another defeat in the process. For the first time in fifteen years he admitted to doubt and uncertainty about his chosen path, but he still refused to accept the hand of friendship.
Two months later, on Christmas Day, he was forced to take it, when he himself was accused of murdering Robert Hammond, the attorney who had defended Yanni Yogi, just days before the statute of limitations was due to run out on his father's murder. No attorney would take his case and his mentor, Manfred Von Karma, rather than support him, took on the case for the prosecution. It was Phoenix and Maya who finally persuaded him to accept their help, proving his innocence with the help of Larry Butz, his other friend from school.
However, halfway through the trial, Miles confessed to Phoenix about his personal conviction that he had murdered his own father - the first time that he had faced up to his nightmares or spoken of them to another person. And in court, the trial immediately changed direction under the direction of Von Karma, with Miles now accused of patricide by his own public admission.
But once again, Phoenix proved him wrong, instead pointing the finger of guilt at Manfred Von Karma, and revealing that it was he who had killed Gregory Edgeworth. That the elevator had in fact stopped on a floor and that Manfred had been waiting outside. That when Miles threw the gun, it was Manfred who had been hit as the bullet pierced the glass, and he who had screamed. That the doors then opened, and upon seeing the occupants unconscious Manfred had, in pain and anger, picked up the gun and shot Gregory dead.
It had been the perfect crime - or so he believed - and he had taken in Miles deliberately to gain revenge on the Edgeworths for the slight he had been paid in court and the events in the elevator. Everything he had done to warp the boy in fifteen years had been to avenge himself on Gregory Edgeworth and to prepare Miles himself for his destruction, accused of the death of Hammond. Manfred had known all along that Miles would confess to the murder of his father, and had orchestrated the entire affair, enlisting Yogi - still harbouring bitterness for the way his trial ended - to assist.
The truth revealed, Miles had to face the loss of his mentor and the knowledge that his entire life with Von Karma had been a lie. The realisation of what had been done to him and what he had done to defendants and attorneys under Manfred's direction was a devastating one. That for every innocent man he had sent to jail, a guilty one had walked free to commit more crime. The enormity of it was almost overwhelming.
Throwing himself into his work, he managed to continue on, until the following February, when in a sensational turn of events the Chief Prosecutor, Lana Skye, was accused of murder. The case was to take many twists and turns as Miles once more faced Phoenix in court, not least the revelation that Miles had been used to present false evidence to the court and that his own corruption had run deeper than even he suspected.
Discovering that he had been used in that way almost destroyed him. After the revelations about his mentor, the law was the one thing that Miles was able to cling to, but when it was proven to him that he had betrayed even that, he felt he had nothing left to live for. He left the Prosecutor's Office and the country that same week, and all that remained to speak of his intent was a note that read “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death.” For the next year he would live quietly in Europe, attempting to come to terms with everything that had happened to him and everything that he had become.
During that year he came to regret the note, re-establishing contact with Gumshoe and assisting with at least one of Phoenix’s cases from afar. And when Gumshoe told him of a case in which he was absolutely positive that Phoenix had offered to defend a guilty man, and in which Miles' sister Franziska would be the prosecutor, Miles immediately made arrangements to return. He studied the details of State v Engarde while he travelled, and made arrangements to resume his role as a prosecutor on his return.
His reunion with Phoenix was not a pleasant one, and nor was that with his sister, but the recriminations of both for his actions were not unexpected, he himself believing that he deserved nothing more. However, he persisted in assisting Phoenix to gather evidence regardless, lecturing him on the meaning of the law and on the necessity of a fair trial regardless of the guilt of the accused. Finally, he took over the prosecution of the case himself when his sister was shot by the man that Miles also later found had kidnapped Maya Fey and threatened her death should Phoenix fail to get an acquittal. As the truth gradually came to light, Miles and Phoenix worked together to gain time to save Maya's life and to solve the case which ended in the accused being convicted and Miles' first win against his old friend.
Afterwards, in the lobby, he explained himself - how he had spent that year not "choosing death", but rediscovering the meaning of the law, the importance of discovering the truth at all costs, and learning how to live his life independently of Manfred Von Karma. By the time Miles returned abroad again, this time at the behest of the Prosecutor's Office and to carry out a study of foreign judicial systems, the two men were entirely reconciled.
It was almost a year later that he received a call in the middle of the night from Larry - a panicked and half-garbled message about Phoenix - about a victim, a crime, and the hospital. Fearing that his friend was dead or dying, Miles took a private jet back to the United States, only to find that reports of Phoenix's imminent death had been slightly exaggerated by Larry. Phoenix was indeed ill and feverish after plunging tens of feet into an icy river the same night that Maya's mother Misty Fey had been killed, but his main concern was the accusation of murder that had been levelled against Iris, a nun at Hazakurain. Phoenix asked Miles to stand in for him as a defence attorney for Iris until he was fit enough to return to court and Miles agreed, albeit reluctantly. Although Phoenix was not asking him to do anything illegal, Miles did not want to answer the questions that would undoubtedly result from his superiors so he pulled a few strings to ensure that the charade went unnoticed.
His first and only day in court as a defence attorney to date went surprisingly well, although in the absence of Prosecutor Godot he pitched himself against Franziska, knowing that her dearest ambition was to beat him in court and thus ensuring that proceedings were as fair as possible. He also began to realise that there was more to the case than met the eye; that it affected Phoenix more deeply than he admitted, and that for Miles it recalled to him events from his first trial.
An earthquake in the middle of the investigation shook his confidence, as his instinctive reaction to it allowed the suspect to escape. But he overcame it, helping Phoenix with the evidence to prove his case and helping his friend face the demons from his own past at the same time.
When he handed the case back to Phoenix he acknowledged that they were “partners”. Being finally able to fulfil his childhood ambition to stand behind the defence bench only served to reinforce his belief that whether an attorney works for the defence or the prosecution is irrelevant - what matters is that they work together for the Truth. And for Justice.