It's common belief that Phoenix became a lawyer because Mia inspired him when she defended him for murder committed by Dahlia Hawthorne. In reality, while Mia did defend him and that was when they first met, and indeed he became her student afterwards, he was already studying to become a lawyer at this point, and his motivation for doing so had nothing to do with Mia. Instead, Phoenix explicitly states he switched to law studies from his art major due to his desire to help Edgeworth, after learning of his (then estranged) friend's decision to train as a prosecutor rather than a defence lawyer as he'd always dreamed. From this, Phoenix apparently deduced that Edgeworth was in a bad situation, and determined to become a defence lawyer in the hopes that they could eventually meet again and he could provide Edgeworth with some kind of aid. In fact, the very first game establishes that Phoenix's motivation was being defended by Miles (who was at the time being raised by his loving defence lawyer father, rather than his Evil Mentor) when his class accused him of stealing Edgeworth's lunch money, and makes it a major plot point in the final case. Sometimes it's assumed that was later retconned in favour of the explanation given in the third game, although the two needn't be mutually exclusive.
Contrary to popular belief, Phoenix has never accused an animal of murder; for that matter, no protagonist lawyer has ever done so either. He once defended an accused animal (an orca accused of killing its owner), but he's never pointed the finger at an animal. This confusion may stem from the fact that he once called a parrot to the witness stand, even though that was just to collect evidence of its owner's true identity; Phoenix never claimed that the bird was directly involved with the murder.
While the fanbase often treat "updated autopsy reports" as one of the prosecution's go-to dirty tricks, they appear in surprisingly few cases; even when they do appear, they are mainly used to clarify smaller details or add information that was uncovered over the course of the trial. The only example of one being submitted by the prosecution with the facts altered specifically to benefit their case, as is often joked about, is in the second case of the first game. The fact this happened in the first non-tutorial case in the series and served as Edgeworth's Establishing Character Moment just meant this one time tended to stick in people's minds.
A very common belief in the fandom is that the series was written as a satire of Japan's legal system, but in fact series creator Shu Takumi has repeatedly stressed as far back as the first game's original release in 2001 that the games were never written from that perspective and that he in fact knew virtually nothing about Japan's legal system while working on them, only interested in writing the series as a thrilling detective story and borrowing basic concepts he recalled from fictional depictions of both Japan and America's court systems. Indeed, within the original trilogy, the idea of the law is almost never actually talked about as some kind of Central Theme. That would only start in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (which was the result of Executive Meddling) and then be continued in subsequent games not written by Takumi, furthering the misconception.
A very common misconception, built off a number of throwaway lines and the fact that generally culprits are never heard of again after their defeat, is that all the killers in the franchise receive the death penalty for their crimes. This is despite the fact that as early as the second case of the series is this proven false, as Redd White is pushed into pleading guilty for Mia's murder, explicitly because confessing to murder would be less fatal than whatever will happen to him should his extensive blackmail network be outed, and numerous instances since then have continued to show such an idea as untrue; for example, Frank Sahwit (whose murder of Cindy Stone during a burglary attempt was not premeditated) is seen again in prison in the second case of Gyakuten Kenji 2, with the implication that he has a long sentence that can be shortened if he behaves himself. Additionally, the death penalty in Japan, while existent, is very much a Godzilla Threshold reserved for especially dangerous criminals without chance of rehabilitation, a fact reflected in the only specified cases in the trilogy of the penalty applied being Serial Killers and a man accused of kidnapping a child for ransom and then murdering her in cold blood. Even the line most commonly cited as being evidence of the idea, where the Judge claims murder is a "capital crime with capital punishment" is actually a minor mistranslation, as in the Japanese script he merely states that murder is a crime which carries the possibility of capital punishment, which is both entirely true and meant to act as Foreshadowing for events later in the game.
Despite it being near universally believed to be the case by English speaking fans, it was never stated in the game canon that Edgeworth was adopted by the von Karmas after his father died. Throughout all his appearances, Edgeworth only ever refers to the von Karmas as his mentor and mentor's daughter, and the word Franziska uses to describe him in the original Japanese script is actually more accurately "younger disciple" than "little brother", referring to them both being students of her father. There is a stronger case to be made for this in the anime continuity due to Adaptation Expansion that does not contradict what is in the games, however.
It's widely assumed by fans that Manfred von Karma decided to mentor Edgeworth so he could try to mold him into a ruthless Persecuting Prosecutor as posthumous Revenge Through Corruption against Edgeworth's father Gregory. While this is certainly a valid interpretation, it's not explicitly canon like many seem to think; the closest the games ever get to discussing the elder von Karma's motives for doing so is when he tells Phoenix that his reasons are his own and none of Phoenix's business.
Missile, the police dog seen in a few cases, is often claimed to have been based on creator Shu Takumi's pet dog. The truth is actually the other way around; Takumi named his dog after the one from Ace Attorney, who was just supposed to be a joke about a police dog being a decidedly unintimidating Shiba Inu. There is a dog in one of Takumi's games based directly on the real life Missile, but that's in Ghost Trick, not Ace Attorney.
Many people are under the impression that Yanni Yogi, after being arrested in the DL-6 Incident, was found guilty of murdering Gregory Edgeworth but released on an insanity plea due to having suffered brain damage. In actuality, it's stated multiple times that DL-6 was never solved at all, and Yogi's insanity which wasn't even real was done so that he would be judged illegible for serving trial. This is why the case served as Edgeworth's Cynicism Catalyst; from his perspective, the court let his father's killer get away on a technicality. Furthermore, Misty Fey falling under scrutiny after Yogi's verdict would be illogical if he was indeed found guilty since her channeling claimed he was the culprit, not that he was of sound mind.
The existence of Rise from the Ashes is commonly assumed by Western fans to have been a Retcon, since the original script for Justice for All says Edgeworth vanished after the events of the first game. In actuality, this is just a translation error; the original Japanese script always stated Edgeworth participated in other trials, and the existence of the Interquel was just to fill in the gaps on what ultimately led to his decision to resign.
Many fans are convinced that Edgeworth intentionally faked his suicide and went into hiding. Except this isn't true. The player is made to believe Edgeworth killed himself for the better part of the game, but in-universe the Metaphorically True meaning of "Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death" is known to all the characters, something explicitly stated by Phoenix in the epilogue. This is the reason why Phoenix reacts more with anger to Edgeworth's return as a prosecutor than being shocked that he's still alive - from the start, he knew he was never dead to begin with.
Concerning "Turnabout Big Top", Regina is sometimes held as being more culpable for Bat's accident than the events of the case would imply. While she was responsible for sprinkling Bat's scarf with pepper, and that did cause Léon to sneeze while Bat's head was inside his mouth, it's never said precisely when these occurred relative to one another. All that's said is that Regina peppered the scarf in response to Bat playing a similar trick on her before, not whether she had any foreknowledge that he would attempt the trick with Léon.
A good number of people believe that the final verdict of "Farewell, My Turnabout" is decided by the player. This misconception stems from the fact that the player is prompted twice to decide whether to plead "guilty" or "not guilty". The first time is rendered moot, due to Franziska showing up with some last-minute evidence. The second time, regardless of what you pick,Engarde demands to be found guilty, and Franziska later asks how Phoenix can be so happy after losing, firmly establishing the only canonical verdict as "guilty". It is possible to get a “not guilty” verdict, but doing so requires getting one of the final questions wrong, and leads to a Downer Ending. It might also be related to the ending of "Turnabout Succession," which does have a verdict literally decided by the player.
A good number of fans, primarily those applying Ron the Death Eater interpretations, tend to argue that Godot's plan was going to involve him or Misty outright killing Pearl, or that at the very least that was something the two were considering. In actuality, the game makes it very clear that the actual plan was for Misty to keep Pearl away from the training grounds entirely while Godot watched Maya. Misty channeling Dahlia was the back-up plan specifically done to ensure that, no matter what, Pearl would never get involved in the murder, and Godot confesses that him killing the channeled Dahlia instead of simply restraining her was because he briefly let his emotions get the better of him.
Many fans have the belief that Iris is charged as an accomplice for Misty Fey's murder, explaining her absence in subsequent games. This is actually a misinterpretation of a line in the English script, where the Judge says Iris will have another trial for her role as accomplice in the case, with it in the original Japanese being just "other charges", and it is even outright said she had no role in the murder itself. Iris is actually only punished for tampering with evidence (not unlike Adrian Andrews in the previous game) in covering up the murder to protect Maya, and it is implied her prison sentence is relatively short, as Bikini in he credits talks about happily waiting for her to return.
Despite what some fans claim, Dahlia and Iris were not active criminal accomplices. The only times they collaborated were when Iris initially agreed to partake in an earlier version of the diamond theft plot that she later backed out of, and when Dahlia had Iris act as her Body Double to retrieve the poisoned bottle from Phoenix while Dahlia herself was under police surveillance, which Iris only partook in to stop her sister from committing even more murders than she already had.
While the series has always had silly and unrealistic elements, the Percieve mechanic was considered too unrealistic for some players to suspend their disbelief for. After all, the idea that Apollo could prove a witness wrong in a court of law not by presenting counter-evidence, but by staring at them really hard until he noticed them fidgeting, was just too ridiculous to take seriously.note The developers for the later games seemed to agree with this criticism, as both Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice limited their Percieve segments to outside the courtroom, with Simon Blackquill in the former further dismissing the whole thing as "trickery and fraud" and siccing his hawk on Apollo for trying to use it during a cross-examination. However, Apollo Justice never treated a witness's body language as proof of anything on its own — after spotting a tell, Apollo still needed to present actual evidence to show why their reaction was relevant to the case before the court would take his claims seriously.
In "Turnabout Serenade", it’s near-universally assumed that Machi confesses to smuggling to avoid being charged with murder. He doesn’t, though; he confesses to smuggling in the American courts to avoid being punished more harshly for the smuggling in Borginia. Apollo and Phoenix both affirm that sufficient evidence has already been gathered to obtain an acquittal of the murder charge, but Apollo points out that Machi could still be deported to Borginia to be tried for the smuggling, unless he confesses on foreign soil first.
The MASON System in "Turnabout Succession" is being experienced by the jurists, not by Apollo himself. Said system is where it's revealed that Apollo and Trucy are half-siblings, meaning Apollo can't have been privy to it since Phoenix states during the epilogue that he still doesn't know. On the second trial day, Apollo reflects on how Phoenix had personally brought him up to speed on the events of the past seven years, which wouldn't have been necessary if he'd been playing through the MASON System.
Kristoph's Black Psyche-Locks are often referred to by people as an unresolved plot point, with many people including it among the list of other story elements dropped in later games. It's actually made incredibly clear what they're concealing, that being his reason for killing Shadi Smith, that being that he recognized him as Zak Gramarye and thus could expose him as being behind the forgery scandal which got Phoenix disbarred, something shown by Kristoph's reaction when made to confess it in court. The confusion is most likely a combination of the locks never breaking on-screen (because Apollo doesn't possess the Magatama) and the explanation for why the locks are black only happening in Dual Destinies and not seeming completely compatible with the situation presented (since "I don't want to get found out for this other crime" doesn't really seem like a motive too deeply buried for Kristoph himself to acknowledge).
Spirit of Justice : It’s often assumed that Phoenix kept Maya’s hostage situation a secret from his friends during the last case, which invalidates the lessons he learned from case 4 of Justice for All about relying on his friends for help in those circumstances. Contrary to this, Phoenix says he informed Edgeworth of the situation before coming back from Khura’in, which is why Edgeworth was spotted in Kurain Village during the investigation. Apollo was the only one Phoenix withheld the information from, because he didn’t want to force Apollo to choose between Dhurke’s revolution and Maya’s life.
Spin-Offs
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Thanks to the Infamous "My extraterritorial rights are too powerful to let this game end!" joke by Hiimdaisy, many people think the final part of the game is just trying to find a way around Ambassador Quercus Alba's diplomatic immunity. He actually loses his immunity during the interrogation thanks to Lang's intervention but the case still keeps going for quite a while after that point, since Edgeworth needs to prove Alba committed a murder outside of Allebahst's side of the embassy.
The Great Ace Attorney is often claimed to have been originally intended as a trilogy, but got Cut Short due to the poor reception to the first game's Cliffhanger ending and forced the story to be resolved entirely in one game. There is no evidence to support this, and in fact Shu Takumi has stated the opposite — that the game was originally meant to be a one-off, but the story draft became too big and thus had to be split, hence why the first game was never marketed as being the first part of a larger story.
