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So recently I've strayed back to twitter, because snarky one-liners about various things (at the moment, mostly Kingdom Hearts - because Meg is playing KH3D - and Phoenix Wright - because I am playing that) take a lot less effort on my part than a full post. However, I have been feeling the vague impulse to make an actual proper post about a few things, and this is one of those things.
As alluded to above, I am currently replaying the Ace Attorney/Gyakuten series of games on DS in preparation for Gyakuten Saiban 5, AKA Ace Attorney Dual Destinies. I've got it in Japanese - not least because I have a Japanese 3DS and 3DSes are region-coded - but I originally played the first 4 Ace Attorney games in English. I did play Gyakuten Kenji (AKA Ace Attorney Investigations) in Japanese, though. Which is not the point of this post, but is some possibly interesting context.
So, I am currently replaying the series. Skipping Apollo Justice, because the system drove me crazy and I'm still mad about Hobo Phoenix and the lack of recurring characters, I have played through the three original games with Phoenix Wright as the main character and am now back on the first of the Miles Edgeworth investigation games. It has been quite a few years since I played them the first time - I remember Investigations was on display at Tokyo Game Show in 2008, when I was living in Japan and attended the show, and I was excited about the replica of Edgeworth's office, so I must have played the 4 Ace Attorney games before I even went to Japan for the first time - which makes it a good 6 years ago now. There is a lot of nostalgia, and a some interesting things I have forgotten about some of the central cases, but there is also a lot of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments and screaming WHYYYY at the complete lack of legal sense to the games.
Obviously I love the games, or I wouldn't be replaying them now and I wouldn't have bought the new game. I mostly love the gameplay (although, Apollo Justice, less so in your case...) and the characters and the plot (... again, I am side-eyeing the whole hobo Phoenix thing here). Nevertheless, as a lawyer, sometimes the illogic drives me up the wall. I mean, I am sure non-lawyers also stop and go "wtf?" at the fact that you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that SOMEONE ELSE DID IT for the person on trial to be found not guilty... but I suspect that my own desire to howl NOOO, WHYYY at the screen or choke with incredulous laughter and bang my head against a wall is exacerbated by my training and profession. I know I did headdesk at a lot of this stuff the first time round, but I swear it is worse this time. Which is odd, actually, because I don't practice criminal law and I would have studied criminal law not that long before playing the games, so it should have been a lot fresher in my mind. Perhaps it was just as frustrating, and I am misremembering this.
However, like with movies and TV shows that are so bad they are funny, at a certain point all this legal ludicrousness becomes as hilariously ridiculous as it is insanely maddening, and so I have turned it into a game and started keeping a list of things that nobody in the Ace Attorney/Gyakuten universe really knows or cares about. In all fairness, I am approaching this from the angle of an Australian lawyer and the Gyakuten legal system is (loosely) based on the Japanese legal system, so some of these things don't apply or at least not to the same extent if you view it in that context. Still, at least some of this stuff is universal, and either way it amused me, so: I present to you the list of things that nobody in the Ace Attorney/Gyakuten universe legal systems knows or cares about.
So far, having just replayed AA 1-3, skipped replaying Apollo Justice, and starting to replay Ace Attorney Investigations/Gyakuten Kenji, this list includes:
* Elements of a crime: In Ace Attorney, you either did it or you didn't. Nobody worries about such paltry things as mounting a legal argument - everything turns on the facts, and everyone is lying, so getting the facts straight is all that matters. On that note, inevitably if your client didn't do it, one of the witnesses did. If I had committed a crime in this universe and somebody else was charged with it, I would go out of my way to avoid being called to the stand, because it seems to me that so long as the defence can't prove a witness did it, the real criminal will get off scott free while their scapegoat gets sent to death row. Which brings us to...
* Reasonable doubt: The concept of reasonable doubt theoretically exists in Ace Attorney, but apparently only to witnesses who have been fingered as the real criminal. I.e., one must prove BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that the witness did it... or else the defendant will be found guilty. You may have demolished the prosecution's case so badly that one could drive a truck through it, but that won't matter if you haven't conclusively proven that someone else is guilty. Never mind not condemning a defendant where there is a reasonable doubt of their guilt; in Ace Attorney-verse, defendants go down when there isn't even a reasonable doubt of their innocence.
* Duty to the client: In the real world, a lawyer representing a client has a duty to that client, superseded only by their duty to the court, to act in the best interests of the client and to follow their instructions. In Ace Attorney-verse, Phoenix and the rest of the court have been known to ignore his clients while they insist they plead guilty and carry the trial on anyway. Also, on the one occasion when your client is ACTUALLY guilty, your aim in representing them changes to drawing out the trial until the time is right to ensure their guilty verdict. This one sent me into agonies of moral dilemma, because let's be honest, the client is an evil douche and I wanted him to go down for it, but at the same time, dude, Phoenix should have been disbarred for THAT and there should have been a mistrial declared, never mind the later false forgery of evidence accusations. The only thing that can really be said in Phoenix's favour and that makes me feel a little less bad about it is that the client was blackmailing him into defending him so he couldn't recuse himself and the client brought it on himself, really.
* The concept that all defendants are entitled to proper representation: ... whether they are guilty or not. A lawyer cannot outright lie to the court if they know something isn't the truth, but they can attempt to present the facts in a way that will help their client (or possibly advise their client to plead guilty if it is hopeless and pleading guilty will net a lighter sentence). Which is one reason why you might not put your client on the stand. Ace Attorney pays lip service to the fact that in an ideal world, an adversarial system will pit equally matched prosecution against defence and a wise judge will be able to divine the truth from hearing the case presented from both sides (admittedly it often doesn't work this way in practice, but that is the idea). However, aside from the glaring example above, it is questionable how Phoenix can be a defence lawyer when he has moral qualms about defending guilty people. You can understand why a game would need to do that, given that the cases in Phoenix Wright are almost inevitably murders and as the player you don't really want total scum going free either, but this still jars a little. Nevertheless, I admit it, there is a reason I don't practice criminal law - this is a moral quandary I would rather not involve myself in on either side of the line. Well, there are several reasons actually, but that is one of them. Anyway.
* Duty to the court: Speaking of not lying to the court, in the real world, a lawyer's highest duty is to the court. Things that would constitute a breach of that duty include, among other things, accusing another person of the crime when you know they didn't commit it (see also: Phoenix's attempt to string out the trial after he found out his client was a guilty ratbag) and deliberately withholding relevant evidence (particularly as the prosecution - see... most trials in this game).
* Whether or not the defendant is ACTUALLY GUILTY: This is related to a number of the points raised above, but deserves emphasis again, because of all these prosecutors with their PERFECT WIN RECORD. That is not a thing to ooh and aah about, that is something to side-eye at suspiciously because are you telling me that for 40 years every case von Karma prosecuted ended in a guilty verdict and nobody (other than Gregory Edgeworth) batted an eye? Really? No trial lawyer should have a perfect win record for that long - if you ask me, it suggests that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And given the kind of senile judge and the evidence forging, something totally was, so I am not sure why nobody bothered looking into that sooner.
* Endemic corruption: On that note, Ace Attorney's entire legal system seems to be founded on corruption (and also incompetence, if you include the judge), and yet this is one of the things that people definitely don't seem to care about as much as I personally feel they should. I mean, dude. In three years, your chief of police and three prosecutors have been found GUILTY OF MURDER (although in Godot's case, to be fair, I am not entirely sure that is the right charge - but that seems to be what they charged him with, so still). Your chief prosecutor also got charged with forging evidence, perjury, and no doubt a bunch of other charges, although she was ultimately found not guilty of murder (despite being charged with it). And the forging evidence thing applies to most of the murderers, too. I just - what is wrong with this city?! And why has no one launched a widespread inquiry yet? Come on, people, if anything calls for a royal commission, surely this is it!
* Mens rea: Actually, speaking of Godot, that reminds me - no one in Ace Attorney-verse seems to care whether or not anyone had an intention to commit a crime. The attitude towards self defence being a poor option because it means still admitting to being a murderer probably does have some cultural basis in the Japanese attitude towards crime and reputation, but the idea that a child could be guilty of murder for throwing a gun to try and stop a physical altercation when the gun then accidentally goes off and kills someone beggars belief. I mean, really??
* Rules of cross-examination: Also high up there on my list of things that don't make any sense is the idea that one must cross-examine one's own client and grill them when they are lying. The reasons for this form of cross-examination make sense from a game mechanics perspective, because it is fun to comb through someone's testimony and find the contradictions in order to draw out the story of what really happened. However, in the land of sanity, both the prosecution and the defence can call their own witnesses. The prosecution cannot compel the defendant to testify, so the defendant will (naturally) be a witness for the defence. Whichever side you are on, a testimony will start with the side whose witness it is asking open, non-leading questions to the witness to allow the witness to tell their story, whatever it is, insofar as it is relevant and admissible. (More on this below.) The other side will then get the opportunity to cross-examine - so the prosecution would cross-examine the defendant, which makes a lot more sense, because how is it in the defence's interests to expose their own client as a liar or press them for details they are reluctant to admit? The one exception to this is when your own witness is being unexpectedly difficult, for example refusing to answer questions or saying something different on the stand than what they led you to believe they would say prior to taking the stand, in which case you can submit to the judge to treat the witness as a hostile witness and you can start asking leading questions and so on. Although I am not sure of any circumstance in which you could treat your own client as a hostile witness. On that note, there is an actual rule of good practice for examining or cross-examining witnesses that you should never ask the witness a question you don't know the answer to - something Diego says to Mia in a flashback, but which Phoenix fails spectacularly at.
* Hearsay and opinion evidence: Having mentioned the concept of admissible evidence, one of the other things no one cares about most of the time in Ace Attorney-verse are the hearsay and opinion evidence rules. These are complex rules in practice, but the theory is relatively straight forward - a witness can only testify about things they have personal knowledge of, i.e. things they saw or heard. As a general rule, they cannot testify about something that someone else told them they saw or heard (hearsay evidence) or on what they think about something (the opinion rule). The major exception to the opinion rule, obviously, is for expert evidence - for example, a psychologist may be able to testify about the defendant's likely mental state. This is another one of those things that people in the Ace Attorney-verse vaguely pretend matters once during one trial, when a witness is told she can only testify about what she saw, but which is repeatedly and flagrantly breached throughout all of the games. Half the time it seems you are cross-examining witnesses about something that somebody else told them, or about their guess as to what the accused must have done or what their motive must have been. How would they know? They wouldn't, but we will cross-examine them about it anyway, by george!
* Chain of evidence: Also on the topic of admissible evidence, it is unsurprising in a way that so much evidence forgery appears to go on in this world, given that people seem to just stuff evidence in their pockets and present it willy-nilly. Who needs proof that this piece of evidence is what I say it is, anyway? I'm telling you I stole - I mean, acquired it in my investigation of the witness's office, so what more do you need?
* Disclosure of evidence: This is a common crime of lawyer dramas, but the eleventh hour presenting of crucial evidence out of nowhere is not really a thing that happens. The prosecution suddenly bamboozling the defence with evidence that it has kept up its sleeve is even more remote of a possibility. This is one of those duties to the court - all evidence must be disclosed prior to the trial. Prosecutors in particularly are held to a very high standard in this. In fact, your entire case should be put to the other side in written submissions so they can prepare their defence. There should not really be any major surprises in the oral submissions unless a witness falls apart under cross examination - which admittedly happens all the time in Ace Attorney land - but then again half the time this is because someone produces Shocking New Evidence (often the evidence that Phoenix has purloined from the crime scene or the witness's office or something, but sometimes evidence the prosecution has deliberately withheld) to contradict their testimony.
* Judgement made on the basis of full and reasoned consideration: I am pretty sure the judge in Ace Attorney does not know the meaning of this phrase. Never mind letting both sides present their full case and then making a final decision on the basis of everything presented; the judge will make his mind up whenever he damn well likes! He will do it in the middle of a witness's testimony if the mood strikes him - after all, the defendant is so obviously guilty, right?
* Burden of proof: In Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright said something to the effect of "a person is innocent until proven guilty" and I almost laughed until I cried, because really? Really, you guys? I REALLY haven't noticed. What with the hair trigger guilty sentences and the fact that your client will be found guilty unless and until someone else is shown categorically to be the true criminal, I am pretty sure the real philosophy is that someone who has been accused of a crime is guilty until proven innocent. Basically all the prosecution has to do is present their theory of how the crime happened and a bit of supporting evidence and testimony, and then sit back and cool their heels while the defence tries in vain to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their client didn't do it, occasionally throwing spanners into the works. The witness can have lied half a dozen times and from their demeanor be clearly hiding something - in other words, every single thing about them is unreliable - but that doesn't matter; the defence still has to PROVE that their so-called eye witness account cannot possibly be true. Possibly because the judge is too senile to notice otherwise.
* Perjury: Witnesses have on occasion been threatened with this, but like contempt of court, it seems more an idle theoretical concept than something with actual consequences. Without fail, every witness to ever appear on the stand in these games lies through their teeth, not just once but repeatedly.
* Due process: I am assuming Phoenix never got a proper investigation into the allegation that he forged evidence, because he would have gotten the opportunity then to put his case that the evidence was supplied by Kristoph. It is interesting that he managed to get disbarred so easily for presenting a piece of forged evidence without any chance to defend himself when prosecutors have apparently been getting away with murder for years (literally in some cases). Perhaps this is the long-awaited crackdown? In which case there is something slightly ironic about the fact that Phoenix being caught by said crackdown when he is the one who exposed most of the previous cases of forged evidence being presented in court. Hoist by his own petard, not that he actually did the forging.
* Court etiquette: This almost goes without saying, but no one in Ace Attorney verse respects the dignity of the court or the office of the judge. Instead, it is a circus, where not only do people unrelated to the trial yell OBJECTION and HOLD IT at random moments, but prosecutors whip the judge, throw coffee at the defence and tell the judge how to run the trial. "Contempt of court" is a phrase that has been uttered, but I am not sure what one has to do to actually get charged with it in the world of Ace Attorney. It seems a rather empty threat, at least if one is the prosecution or a super obviously perjuring witness. It is probably a lot easier for this to happen to the defence.
* Jurisdiction: Everything I have mentioned so far has been examples from the first 3 games, largely relating to what takes place in court. However, Ace Attorney Investigations has given me something new to amuse myself at, which is what finally set off this list - an international police officer waltzes in and takes sole carriage of a domestic kidnapping. Because that is totally something that happens, right? Man, this dude must have the most magical powers of persuasion ever, considering he has no real grounds for jurisdiction and the kinds of jurisdiction arguments law enforcement agencies within a single country who all have an actual claim to the crime scene are known to engage in.
* COMMON SENSE: ... this doesn't really require explanation. I think all of the above illustrates this fairly well. But one thing that struck me that didn't really fit into any of these other categories - how can the chief of police just parachute his former partner into the role of chief prosecutor? How does that even work? I mean, for a start, how does a police officer just become a prosecutor like that, let alone the chief prosecutor? And how does the chief of police have control over that?
Also, Franziska became a prosecutor at 13 year old? Really, guys? REALLY?
Okay, done for now. I mock because I care! XD Wow, that took hours. This is why I stopped updating my LJ so much.
Meanwhile, I just walked out to the kitchen and my parents were watching The Lincoln Lawyer. Now there is an interesting contrast to Phoenix's guilty client...