Headscratchers / Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All

Case 2-1

• How does everyone know how Phoenix is spelling Maggey's name, when he's just speaking? He says that the writing says "Maggie, but the defendant spells her name Maggey", without saying "with a Y", or anything.
  • Psmith Psyndrome. Alternatively, he actually is saying 'with a y' but the game doesn't show it like that because the makers know we can tell the difference.
  • The prosecutors seem to be aware of the "health" meter and can manipulate it, so who's to say they can't see the text boxes?
  • Rule of Perception and Law of Conservation of Detail. Because the player can see how Phoenix is spelling the names, there's no need to add extra dialogue explaining the difference. Also, it's kinda funny this way.
    • Also, in the original Japanese Version of the game, Naruhodo/Phoenix says something to the effect of "I am not talking about the Katakana-spelling, Prosecutor Auchi(Payne), I'm talking about the Kanji", directly refering to the spelling issues that arouse with Maggey's name (Suzuki Mako) in the japanese version. Apparently, the "Suzu" in her name is spelt with an rather unusual Kanji there.
  • Or, you know, when he was clarifying the incorrect spelling, he could have just been spelling the name out loud. There's no indication that he isn't doing that. Besides, mistaking the spelling of Maggey's name due to having only heard it out loud is a plot point in the case, if I may add, just FYI, since a lot of people seem to forget this.
  • He wouldn't even have to spell it out. He could simply point at Maggey's profile in the Court Record (M-A-G-G-E-Y) and then point at the picture of the writing in the sand (M-A-G-G-I-E).
• In the first case, the victim broke his neck in the fall. Why doesn't anyone tell the court that breaking your neck like that, falling a few meters either kills or paralyses you? Then it would be obvious that the accused was Not Guilty!
  • Breaking your neck does not mean your automatically paralyzed. The windpipe in your neck is what must break for this to happen, and it is possible to snap your neck without snapping the windpipe.
• How didn't Maggey know who Dustin's murderer was? They were in the park at that time to give Richard his phone back, and Richard most likely wouldn't have overreacted seeing a police officer on his own. This means that Maggey would have been right at the scene of the crime, yet she never recognizes the murderer or tries to point him out to Phoenix.
  • They don't make it that clear, but it could be that Dustin and Maggey were separated at the point of the actual murder? They say that Richard saw Maggey with Dustin and freaked out about it, so it could be that Richard saw the two from a far, noticed they had a phone in their hands and were waiting around, put two and two together, then in order to not have Maggey as a witness, waited until the right time to strike. Then...I suppose it's possible that maybe Dustin walked away from Maggey for whatever reason, such as to go to use a public toilet, and it was at that point that Richard killed him. Dustin likely was the one who had the phone with him, if this is the case. Granted, this is all just hand-waving to contradictions more then actual explanations but...it's possible, at least.
    • Maggey had the phone, otherwise A) Wellington would have just taken it and B) Maggey is the one who gave it to Phoenix. Otherwise you're probably correct in that he walked away, maybe even to just see if he could find the phone's owner in the area and guide him to Maggey. He turned around to go back to Maggey and was pushed.
• What exactly was Richard Wellington trying to achieve by whacking Phoenix over the head with a fire extinguisher? He probably wasn't trying to kill him because a fire extinguisher isn't exactly the best murder weapon and he didn't act too shocked to see Pheonix alive and well when he took the stand. So what was he thinking?
  • Probably something along the lines of incapacitating the defense attorney who managed to take down two of the greatest prosecutors in the world. Amnesia might not have been his primary goal. Hospitalizing him or giving him a knock that makes it far too hard to concentrate and cause him to faint mid court were probably more likely goals. Either way he didn't really want Wright at the top of his game given his reputation.
  • Was he supposed to walk up to Phoenix and just ask for his phone? He probably only wanted to knock him out for just long enough to take the phone. He took the wrong phone, indicating that he took it in a hurry, indicating that he didn’t expect the fire extinguisher to keep him knocked out for long.
• So, what were those two bailiffs you always see in the defendant lobby doing while Wellington was hitting Phoenix over the head with a fire extinguisher?

Case 2-2

• Everyone seems to acknowledges that channeling using the Kurain Channeling Technique is real, and that the channeler physically changes to reflect the person being channeled, why does no one even suggest that Maya may have been overpowered by the spirit and not responsible for her actions? That seems a lot easier to explain than Mimi stealing her dead sister's identity then planning and executing such a convoluted plan for revenge. Of course, that would have been a pretty boring case to play, and the real murderer would have gone free.
  • Even if Maya herself wasn't responsible for her actions, she could plausibly be charged with crimes like reckless endangerment and involuntary manslaughter. By summoning a spirit in a way that removes her control over her actions, she effectively puts both herself and her client at serious risk.
  • I can't help you with the suggest part, but that suggestion would still be problematic. Maya's reputation and social life would be ruined, like Yanni Yogi's. So that would only be a lesser evil. In fact, Phoenix specifically STATES this as a reason to go for 'not guilty'.
    • As an aside, this would be harmful for the Kurain mediums in general. If word got out that the spirits they channel can get violent and kill people, the mediums' reputation would take a nosedive.
    • On that point: by the end of the case, we find that Morgan was later charged (and convicted) as a co-conspirator. She wanted Maya to take a fall, and Mimi merely provided a way to do it. If it could be proven that Maya has no control over her actions at the time of the murder, to the point that the Diet, or Udgey himself, thought that Kurian Channeling was a Dangerous Forbidden Technique, they could declare it illegal. Morgan would then be the head of a defunct House. Given that this would be the sort of angle that any other skilled Defense Attorney would pursue, one could ask said co-conspirator "Was It Really Worth It?"
  • Morgan touches on this when questioned in the Channeling Chamber about the crime. She says that experienced mediums don't have trouble controlling the whims of hostile spirits like Mimi Miney supposedly was. The implication is that Maya is being held responsible because she took on a channeling job that she wasn't competent to handle, and that if she had been capable enough, the spirit controlling her wouldn't have been able to kill Dr. Gray.
  • This plot point is explained further in the sixth game, Spirit of Justice. According to it, qualified spirit mediums are able to purge a channeled spirit from their body at any point, thereby preventing a spirit from doing anything the medium wouldn’t want it to. That’s probably what Morgan meant when she implied that Maya had lost control of Mimi Miney.
• How was Mimi able to look like herself during the murder? Her face was destroyed in the crash and made to look like her sister's through plastic surgery, so why did it change back to her face? This is a clear contradiction!
  • It's not that much of a contradiction. As indicated by their portraits in the court record, Ini and Mimi already had similar face shapes, and Ini is most frequently seen with her eyes closed and wearing lipstick. When she actually opens her eyes during her testimony on the second day of trial, she's not that far off from Mimi, apart from the hair.
• When Lotta photographs Mimi, her costume doesn't have a hole in it. While Phoenix and Lotta are calling the police, Morgan removes Maya's costume and burns it (thus explaining how the key ended up in the incinerator), and dresses her in Mimi's costume. When Maya's costume (actually Mimi's) is presented in court, there IS a hole in it.
  • Maybe the wrong costume ended up being submitted as evidence. According to the sequence of events Phoenix suggests, Mimi must've been the one Dr. Grey shot at. It's possible she switched costumes with Maya, for some reason, before Phoenix broke the door down. Then, after Phoenix and Lotta left the room, Mimi and Morgan planned to burn Mimi's bullet-hole costume and present Maya's undamaged one as evidence, but they got the two mixed up and mistakenly burned Maya's instead.
    • The costume evidence is the strangest thing, because the game implies there were three outfits in play- the one Maya wore that got burned, Mimi's, and the one Maya was found wearing, which the only possible explanation for it having a bullet hole in it is came out of the clothing box. Why were there three costumes? Why not dress Maya in Mimi's bloodied costume? What happended to Mimi's costume? How did Maya's costume get blood on it? Were they both burned? If they had just either put Maya in Mimi's costume or bloodied up Maya's, it would have been a great deal harder to prove Maya's innocence. They'd have to rely on the key being in the incinerator (if she was instead found in Mimi's costume) or possibly make it about the blood pattern being different (if they bloodied Maya's outfit up). What was the in-universe point of the third costume?
• One major piece of evidence as to the identity of the killer is that the Miney sisters were driving a European car, so the driver was on the right side of the car when it crashed into the center divide however, Japanese cars have the driver's seat on the right side, and drive on the left. Was she using an American car or something in the original? And wouldn't that change the flashback a bit?
  • I think that the Japanese version had a different type of car. As for changing the flashback, why would it?
    • Well... y'know that flashback "photo", where we see "Ini" sitting on the road, and the flaming wreckage hung up on the center divide? Doesn't it look like they're on the right side of the road? You can see a bit of the road on the other side of the divide, too. Of course, if my memory is sketchy on that, and I'm wrong, then an American car would sort things out nicely, but that one detail is bugging me.
    • It was a really impressive crash.
    • Just to clear up matters, in the Japanese version, the car is indeed an American sportscar, with the driver's side on the left.
    • And, as a further step in clarity, in the American, it's specifically a British Sports Car: The Brits drive on the left, like the Japnese. The other Europeans, those on the continent, drive on the right, similar to the Americans. All the dub would need to do is flip the image.^note Though it may constitute a Headscratcher of its own for the Brits...
• Maya's fingerprints are found at the scene and on evidence. Wouldn't this be impossible, as the Kurain Channeling would change the fingerprints?
  • Hmmm... maybe Franziska would have pointed out that she probably killed Dr. Grey first and THEN channeled in an attempt to prove her innocence.
  • Mia ends up with black hair when channeled by Maya, so maybe channeling doesn't induce a total physical change.
  • Don't forget that the Kurain Spirit Channeling Technique is a sacred art that only the people in Kurain village practice. It's unlikely that Phoenix himself knows much about it, and thus he couldn't very easily substantiate the claim that "Her fingerprints were not her own", because he doesn't really KNOW if that would change during channeling. Franziska, on the other hand, has studied up on it, and could call his knowledge of it into question pretty easily. And considering how easily the Judge is swayed, Phoenix probably wouldn't get very far on conjecture alone.
  • Not to mention, even if channeling does change fingerprints, Morgan immediately forced Phoenix and Lotta out of the room, so she could have easily wiped off Mimi's fingerprints and just stuck the knife handle in Maya's hand for a few seconds to get her prints on it.
    • Most likely this is what happened, since Mimi's prints were notably not on the gun. It'd be a little strange for everything else to change but not fingerprints.

• Was it really necessary for Mimi to kill Dr. Grey? Maya is still a relative neophyte at channeling; just because she was unable to call a particular spirit doesn't mean that person is necessarily alive, just beyond her skill. And even if Dr. Grey concludes that Mimi isn't dead, who would believe him? Spirit channeling is still viewed with skepticism in most of the world, and I don't see him convincing any authority that Mimi is alive because a teenage girl in a funny costume failed to polymorph into her.
  • No, it wasn't necessary for Mimi to kill him, but that doesn't mean she thought that way. In her mind, even the slightest chance that she'd be discovered was too large of a risk to take. Truthfully, I don't think it was really about her identity at all: Mimi wanted to kill him for all that he put her through. She lost everything in one day and needed someone to blame for it. She just used her secret as a way to justify it to herself. It's like a lot of murders (especially those in this series).
    • It's also important to keep in mind that she may have lost her job because she really did mix up the medicines, before falling asleep at the wheel under stress. It's for this reason why the general fan consensus is that Dr. Grey didn't drug her, he's just a Jerkass who she chose as a target for her anger.
    • And, not to mention, Mimi doesn't necessarily know that Maya's a beginner. Maya actually seems to be held in fairly high regard by those who've never met her.
    • But Mimi had to talk to Morgan in order to plot everything. In fact, claiming that Maya was too incompetent to channel the spirit would have suited Morgan's goals well.
    • ... How? Morgan wanted Maya out of the way so that Pearl would become the next Master. How does convincing one person that she's incompetent accomplish that?
    • Most likely Morgan insisted she kill Grey. Mimi may not have initially thought it was something she had to do, but Morgan snatched the opportunity to get Maya put on death row or at least out of the village for 20 years. Morgan directly says Maya not being good at channelling wouldn't matter- she has to get Maya out of the way completely for Pearl to succeed as the Master. She says it doesn't matter how powerful the branch family is, they cannot step out of the shadow of the main family. So my best guess? Morgan put the idea in her head that Grey had to die so she could frame Maya for murder.
  • This troper figured there might have been a risk of Maya accidentally channeling the real Ini Miney, who could have blown Mimi's cover.
  • Or Morgan intentionally played on Mimi's fear of her deception being discovered in order to create a situation in which Maya would be removed from the head of the family.
• One argument raises against the prosecution is the blood stain on Maya's clothes which Ini apparently didn't notice. Ini and Von Karma dodges this by stating that the room was dark and she couldn't see it. Ok, so how about later on when they are now talking about the locations where she is OUTSIDE of the room in BROAD DAYLIGHT?! Why doesn't Phoenix bring up the blood stained clothes again considering now she has no excuse for not noticing it?
  • By that time Ini was supposedly already told of the murder. The problem with her testimony is she stated not be surprised with her sister appearance at the time they met.
    • There's also the fact that she said she followed Maya/"Mimi" out. Maya probably had her back to Ini, and the blood stains were on the front.
• Lotta's testimony is repeatedly referred to, specifically the part about the folding screen. The problem? That testimony doesn't necessarily exist. If, when pressing her, you don't actually ask about the folding screen, that testimony is never made - yet the case continues, and the imaginary testimony is referenced later.
  • The problem is that the plot assumes you press almost every statement of almost every witness. Simple solution? Just press every statement that doesn't lead to health damage or a game over.
• Didn't Maya or someone else at Kurain think it was a bad idea to channel a spirit that might have a grudge against the person requesting the channeling? It seems risky that they planned on having only the channeler and the client in the room at the time! It might be offensive to a spirit to be called back to take the blame for something whether she was at fault or not and even if it was to help her old boss. They even let the Doctor take a gun into the room. Did Maya just trust Morgan to set everything up for her?
  • If Kurain was still recovering from Misty's public disgrace, maybe Maya felt she didn't have the luxury of turning away clients who might pose a risk. As for the gun, he didn't necessarily tell them about it.
    • Grey almost certainly did not tell them about the gun. Besides, the person in charge of this was Morgan, who, you know, was planning for this to happen.
  • Nobody expects the spirit to procure a knife out of no-where. And nobody except Dr. Grey knew about the gun.
• You confront Ini Miney with evidence that she must have known Turner Grey and force her to admit that her sister Mimi worked for him, using the magatama to break through her Psyche-Locks. Except it turns out later that she's really Mimi, and therefore she was the one who worked for him. Yet the unlock is successful as if nothing was wrong with her claim.
  • The magatama shows conscious secrets that people are willingly hiding from others (the normal red ones, at least. As We find out in Dual Destinies). That doesn't necessarily mean that secret has to be the full truth. That's the thing, the magatama can easily be tricked because it's just a "secret detecting" thing, not a literal lie detector, so if someone knows about the magatama (or in the case of both Mimi and Luke, acting out the roles of other personas), they can easily trick it by "hiding" a secret that isn't actually true, or in Mimi's case, one that is based on truth but isn't entirely accurate. I could pretend that I really love Brussels sprouts, for example and act like I'm carrying that secret around, and that would likely make Phoenix's magatama go off. Then Phoenix goes through the process of proving that I like them and I'm like "okay I do", and boom, secret's out. But the secret's a lie, and that's one of the drawbacks of the magatama. Every one of the "lawyer powers" needs it's drawbacks, otherwise the characters would literally just be human lie-detectors, which wouldn't make for a very balanced protagonist
• How did the Magatama fail to detect any Psyche-locks in Morgan? She was deliberately avoiding questions and changing topics all the time.
  • Maybe something to do with her Fey blood, perhaps.
    • But the Magatama works just fine against Pearl and Mia, both of whom are said to be more skilled than Morgan.
  • Even without any spiritual power, Morgan probably understands the most about how the magatama works. After all, it's one of the only spiritual powers that anyone can use, even a random lawyer. Because of her ample experience, she likely knew a mental technique that would prevent it from triggering.
  • Another answer is based on context from later games: given how deeply rooted Morgan’s issues appear to be, it’s not hard to speculate that her Psyche-Locks would be black if they ever manifested. And black Psyche-Locks don’t appear to manifest as easily as the ordinary red ones; Phoenix was friends with Athena Cykes for several months and with Kristoph Gavin for several years, without either of their Psyche-Locks appearing until they were confronted directly about the secrets they were concealing.
    • Not true, because the black locks are used to show a secret hiding from the person themselves. Hidden trauma. They aren't just super special locks hiding deep dark secrets someone doesn't want to reveal. It's stated they can cause deep psychological damage if undone too early or wrong. Athena was not concealing anything purposely. Morgan would not have suffered any psychological damage from it coming out that she hates Maya and the whole main family. The black locks aren't just a catch-all.
    • I wasn’t implying that they were. Morgan Fey could have developed the same kind of black-lock-induced amnesia that Kristoph Gavin displayed, where he deluded himself into thinking he was the super-supreme defense attorney even though he forged evidence and resorted to murder to protect his reputation. In the same vein, Morgan Fey was convinced that her line was more deserving of the title of Master, even though she didn’t have any spiritual power herself and Pearl was her second attempt to have a child who did. By their nature, it’s very likely that the black locks protect secrets more complicated than the standard “I killed this person” or “I did this thing”, but Morgan’s traumatic “secret” could just boil down to “My family line isn’t meant to be the main branch of the Fey Clan”, wrapped in layers upon layers of all the crimes and heinous things she’s done because she can’t come to grips with that simple truth. You say facing the truth wouldn’t have caused her any psychological damage, but look at Kristoph’s breakdown. Some people really are just that petty.
  • Most likely the reason the Psyche-Locks didn't trigger was because Morgan wasn't hiding anything important to her. Loads of witnesses will dodge questions and change topics and not trigger them. The locks don't trigger every single time someone lies or has a secretm nor when they act like they have one. The red locks trigger when someone is conciously and deliberately witholding something they feel is very important. The only thing Morgan considers important is Pearl becoming the next Master and she doesn't make much effort to hide that. Look at the initial conversations with Adrian Andrews- she shuts down and dodges questions constantly, just like Morgan did, but the locks don't trigger until you ask her about the motive regarding how Engarde tied in with the murder (which is something Adrian did). Moe's secret is important to him since Acro and his trust are important to Moe. Acro's secret is important because, well, it's his entire motive for murder. Mimi Miney might seem like a weird outlier, but Phoenix never suspects "Ini" is actually her sister Mimi until he gets to the trial. So the topic never came up. If Phoenix had implied to her he suspected she wasn't the real Ini, I would bet five red locks would appear. Mimi's actual secret we deal with might seem an outlier, too, but she really wants to just distance herself from those two incidents as much as possible, but she's confident Phoenix can't correctly guess her identity hence why it only spawns two locks.
• During the end of the case you're tasked with saying who was the one in the drivers seat as you find out which of the sisters was actually killed in the ride. If you say it was Ini driving you're told that you're wrong because she didn't have a license yet, so Mimi is the only one who could legally drive. It's an argument that has a simple flaw: not having a license doesn't mean you're physically unable to drive. So it's entirely possible that Ini could have taken over driving because Mimi didn't feel it was safe to drive while tired, but no one even seems to consider the possibility that she might have broken the law in that way.
  • Phoenix's claim isn't shot down because of the lack of driver's license. Franziska counters with it, but then Phoenix points out that her lack of experience could be exactly what caused the accident, and is only shot down by Mia telling him to look at it from a different perspective. Anyway, Ini's testimony also established that Mimi wouldn't have let her drive the car even with a license, due to the fact that it was a new, prized and expensive sports car.

Case 2-3

• Why does the killer say he deliberately framed Max? Except for the lack of footprints, the evidence against Max resulted from chance events Acro couldn't have foreseen. It would have made more sense for him to claim "I had no intention of framing Max. But when the police formed the wrong conclusion, I decided to go along with them."
  • The implication here is that Acro intended to kill someone without being blamed for it. So he had to frame someone. He first of all didn't think there would be any witnesses. But, just in case, he used the bust of Max to draw suspicion away from himself, hoping that if anyone saw anything in the dark, they would think it was Max, and wouldn't see the rope. And that was actually born out: none of the witnesses (like Moe) even saw a rope...they just saw Max flying! He didn't necessarily intend to frame anyone: he hoped he would get the job done without witnesses, but he covered his tracks in case there WERE witnesses. The cape landing on the bust was just fortunate happenstance.
  • Acro did not originally intend to kill without being blamed. All his plot was to get Regina into the place where he could kill her, without caring to hide his identity as the killer. It was entirely a coincidence that Mr. Berry happened to wear Max's costume to the crime scene and the coat happened to hang onto the bust, incriminating Max. Acro did not plan this to happen (and he really couldn't). Though he did say he deliberately framed Max, I took that to mean he framed Max after realizing that other people were suspecting Max instead of him.
    • This explanation seems to be the most likely. There's really no way that Acro could've planned to frame Max from the start, so "I blamed Max" could very plausibly just mean "I decided to just roll with that after the fact," since it basically amounts to the same thing.
  • Acro chose a method of murder that wouldn't frame anyone if it hadn't been so unexpectedly noisy, if the Ringmaster hadn't taken Max's hat and cape, and if Ben wasn't a literal creep waiting to prey on Regina. If the murder had gone exactly as planned, nobody would be a suspect. Not Max, not Acro. Moe would have been too far away to do the murder without leaving any signs he was there. He just took the opportunity to have Max take the fall to avoid suspicion coming to him.
• It's established early on in the chapter that Max Galactica's flying act is well known. Even the public knows about it. Yet when Moe went to testify, Franziska told him to leave out the part where he saw the murderer "fly away" just because it "wasn't funny". Seeing as Max is the only suspect who is well known for their flying ability, wouldn't it have been better if they had left that part of Moe's testimony in? Surely she would have heard about Max's act either from the public or when she was going over the crime scene herself.
  • If he had brought it up, it was possible that the Judge would have focused on that as his means of identification. But Phoenix could very easily have pointed out that Max doesn't really fly, it's all smoke and mirrors, and there's no reason to pretend otherwise. Meaning that "It was clearly Max because Max can fly" just results in her losing the case.
• It turns out that the one who ordered the surprise search on Acro's room was Edgeworth, not Franziska. But if that's the case, why did Franziska act like she was the one who did when Acro brought it up, blaming herself for doing something that ended up costing her victory?
  • It seemed to me that Edgeworth just suggested it, and Franziska was actually the one who ended up ordering it to be carried out. She could have just been mad at herself for taking that suggestion instead of thinking up an alternative.
• Why weren't there any footprints in the snow near the Ringmaster's body? If any of the circus performers saw their beloved boss lying on the ground after being struck down by an assailant, surely the very first thing they would have done would be to approach him, before even thinking about calling the police.
  • You'd be surprised as to how often people don't approach the bodies of their loved ones who were murdered. People often freeze up and can't think of doing anything apart from phoning it in.
• The climax of the case involves shooting down Franziska's argument by proving that the one who killed the Ringmaster was Max's bust, not Max himself. However, this clearly shows that Franziska meant to imply that Max had, in fact, quite literally flown away from the murder scene. Which is impossible, even for Ace Attorney. What exactly was her master plan? How did she intend to convince the court that Max literally flew away after murdering the Ringmaster? Why didn't Phoenix just call her bluff and ask her to prove it?
  • Because Phoenix already had a game plan in the form of interrogating Acro about the crime. He didn't need to demand proof from Franziska because he was already convinced that Acro did it. If he hadn't done so, she might've tried justifying the claims of Max flying by saying he installed some pully system on the roof or something.
• What's the significance of Moe using the word "gotti" with that unique spelling. Did former New York crime boss John Gotti have something to do with this case.
  • It could be a weird reference to the Icelandic brand of cheese of the same named named after the same man.
• Who takes care of Pearl while Nick and Maya are out solving cases? She says in the last case that Maya's the only family she has left, seeming to imply that Maya looks after her... But Maya's with you all throughout "Turnabout Big Top", yet Pearl's completely absent after the introduction. Is someone else in Kurain Village taking care of her?
  • Most likely. Kurain village seems like the the type where everyone raises all the children. But Pearl does seem to be there a lot when they ARE solving cases, too.

Case 2-4

• What was with Adrian wanting to burn the suicide note from Celeste? She thought the note was real, so why would Adrian think she was bringing justice to her mentor by getting rid of the one thing Celeste tried to leave behind?
  • The note was a forgery created by Juan that he would use to ruin Matt for good. Adrian wanted to destroy it to stop Celeste's good person from being used anymore in their ugly rivalry (especially considering that their feud was what led Celeste to kill herself). Whether it was a real or fake didn't matter to her.
• If Engarde really didn't trust De Killer at all, why did he think that he could leave the blackmail tape with him without him watching it?
  • Engarde learned that De Killer always places trust in his clients and he will do what his clients wants without question because that is the basis of trust. Engarde knew he could catch him on tape and it would never be watched by anyone other than Engarde himself.
  • More to the point, Engarde never planned for de Killer to have to look after the tape. His original plan was for de Killer to just kill Corrida and take the heat - and then if de Killer ever threatened to reveal that Engarde was behind the murder, Engarde could use the tape to blackmail him into not revealing this. This plan failed because Adrian Andrews set the crime scene up to implicate Engarde, meaning he was arrested - at which point he had no choice but to tell de Killer to take the tape with him, and hope he didn't watch it. And by the time he gave that order, he knew that de Killer could be trusted to do anything at all for his client - if he couldn't be trusted, he'd have already let Engarde take the heat anyway rather than hiring Phoenix.
• Shelley de Killer knows enough about Adrian Andrews to finger her as a plausible client (as opposed to someone really off-the-wall like Will Powers or Wendy Oldbag), but he doesn't know that she's female?
  • Considering the fact that de Killer fully expects Phoenix to play along, he's not worried about the minor details. When Phoenix doesn't play along, de Killer points out that it's not exactly good for Maya, and Phoenix quickly backs up. In other words, de Killer expected Phoenix to agree that Adrian Andrews was his client because it would get Matt Engarde off the hook and set Maya free. He doesn't expect Phoenix to play a different game entirely.
    • There's also the fact that he knows about the status of the trial. Probably from local news. He may just be aware that Adrian came up, and used that name to stay consistent.
  • Maybe Matt just happened to mention "my manager, Adrian Andrews" in conversation or something. (Preferably the way it happened in this fanfiction, for Rule of Funny.)
• De Killer said when he delivered the bear puzzle to his client, they were wearing the Nickel Samurai costume, and the way you prove that the person in the costume couldn't have been Adrian is by presenting the bear puzzle or the suicide note, because Adrian knew how to solve the puzzle and would've taken the note out and burned it, but the note was still in the bear. But de Killer said he delivered the puzzle immediately after killing Juan. Adrian didn't have access to the Nickel Samurai costume she used until after she went to Juan's room, which was much later, and she couldn't have taken Matt's because he was wearing it while napping, and she would've woken him up if she tried to take the costume. Since Adrian using the costume is one of the biggest topics in the previous trial, it should've been a pretty obvious argument, and nearly impossible to counter. The puzzle and note argument could be countered by saying she simply didn't have enough time to take apart the bear and burn the note right then. Why does this never get pointed out?
  • No one has any proof that Engarde was napping at the time or that he was wearing the Nickel Samurai costume while doing so. The only one to claim that was Adrian, and Phoenix recalling her testimony would be brushed off by de Killer as a fabrication to give herself an alibi.
• When the judge says that Matt is not truly innocent or a good person because he caused a young woman to commit suicide, it has just been revealed that the suicide note was a forgery. So why doesn't Matt object to this? Maybe he doesn't really care because it doesn't affect him that much, but the judge has no solid proof that Matt drove Celeste to suicide.
  • Yes, the note we see was a forgery, but there are hints that Celeste wrote an actual suicide note of her own, and theoretically they could have Adrian testify about the circumstances leading up to Celeste's suicide also. My best guess as to why they don't actually go into this is that the case is finally coming to a close and the writers didn't want to stretch it out any more. Plus, as you said, Matt doesn't really care about Celeste one way or the other anyway.
• Regarding the presentation of the video tape to De Killer, there's no way he could see what is playing in the tape, and there's no reason De Killer would believe Phoenix over his own client. Why doesn't he just hang up the transceiver at that point, believing that Phoenix is a backstabber? I mean I guess he could hear it, but it's still odd to have to "show" someone something when they have no way of physically seeing it.
  • As you said, de Killer still could've heard the tape, which recorded the struggle that he himself undertook with Corrida, so he would be familiar enough to know that it's covering the same event. He didn't hang up because he knew enough to realize that Phoenix was telling him the truth.
  • De Killer also has no personal attachment to Engarde that would influence his choice in the matter; what he's really concerned about is his reputation, professional standing, and the mutual sense of trust between him and his clients. Even if he didn't recognize the sound of the recording with certainty and thought that there was a slight chance Phoenix was trying to trick him, giving Phoenix the benefit of the doubt and sparing Maya in order to throw Engarde under the bus loses him nothing.
• When Phoenix says to Edgeworth that Maya was kidnapped, why doesn't he mention the kidnapper's name? He remembered the name long enough to tell it to Matt a few minutes after he first heard it. Did he really forget the only info he had about the kidnapper by the next night? Given that Edgeworth had just said he was looking for "Shelly De Killer," it makes sense that Phoenix would mention that the kidnapper said his name was "De Killer."
  • Phoenix might not have taken the name seriously up until he found out about its connection to an assassin. Under the circumstances, he had absolutely no reason to believe that Maya's kidnapper was actually named "de Killer" and that it wasn't just a cruel joke meant to twist the knife about the situation.
• Why does Phoenix take Pearl with him to Engarde's mansion when they're storming the place looking for Shelly De Killer? Isn't looking for assassins and their hostages something that should be handled by the police without the involvement of 8-year olds? She could easily have been asked to stay at the Criminal Affairs Department.
  • I imagine Pearl insisted on going since she was anxious to find Maya, and Phoenix was probably in too much of a hurry to argue the point.
  • Pearl's ability to channel Mia is also Phoenix's only way of getting information on where Maya is. It's possible he'd hoped to repeat the channel-hopping in order to verify whether Maya was still at the mansion.
• How was the door between Engarde's living room and the video room locked from both sides? You approach it from one side as Maya and it's locked. Later, you approach it from the other side as Phoenix and it's locked. I guess someone who was hiding illegal activity behind that door would come up with fancy ways of locking it, but there's no reason it should have been originally designed to lock in a way that would prevent people on Maya's side from opening it.
  • Maybe Engarde had that lock installed so he could lock himself in that room with the only key to "focus on the script". It just happened to be a convenient place to hide a hostage in during that case.
• Why did de Killer leave a calling card with Maya? It doesn't help to use such an object to inform your victim who they're dealing with when you're already there in person, especially if they're unlikely to recognize the symbol. It shouldn't be there for the police to find when they recover her, because finding her there would throw a lot of suspicion on the place's owner, which he is deliberately trying to avoid. And, of course, it's counterproductive to give your hostage a Skeleton Key Card.
  • Given how he originally threatened to kill Maya if Nick didn't end the trial in one day, it's possible that De Killer just left the card there in case Nick didn't do what he wanted him to do.
  • Given that it's a calling card and, presumably, De Killer has hundreds of them, it's possible he just dropped that one without noticing.
• After it's revealed that de Killer committed the actual murder, the rest of the trial is devoted to determining who hired him because that person is therefore guilty of murder by hiring him. With this in mind, how was Engarde expecting to avoid suspicion by hiring a known assassin who routinely implicates himself using a calling card? Once that was established, not even an alibi would have helped him, and given their well-known rivalry and the knowledge of the planned post-award ceremony, Engarde would still have been at the top of the list of suspects.
  • Since Engarde seems to know that Adrian also had a grudge against Juan for his role in Celeste's suicide, it's likely that he could have tried to implicate Adrian as De Killer's client if it hadn't ended up happening anyway during the trial.
    • In one of his Evil Gloatings, Engarde says "I never thought in your desperation, you'd try to pin the guilt onto Adrian", so he probably didn't want to frame anyone specifically and the evidence pointing to Adrian was just a coincidence.
  • Juan Corrida is a celebrity. There's any number of reasons why an assassin might be sent after a famous person, ranging from a rival upset he didn't get a role that Juan did, to a director trying to remove him from a project without having to pay him, to an obsessed fan angry because he didn't sign onto a sequel role, to another obsessed fan angry that because he got a role that the fan's favorite actor should have gotten, etc. etc. If Engarde hadn't already been implicated in the murder, starting the chain of events that culminated in his conviction, then the list of plausible suspects for hiring the assassin would have been "everyone on the planet Earth", and short of finding De Killer and getting him to confess to who hired him, the true culprit of the case would go undiscovered forever.
• If De Killer wants his client to be acquitted, why is he threatening the defense attorney, rather than the prosecutor or the judge? They'd both be in a better position to guarantee the defendant's acquittal. The defense attorney is already on your side!
  • Because without the defense attorney, his client has no defense. If Phoenix goes, "Yup, my client is guilty. Throw the book at him." then the case is closed, the client goes to jail, end of case. Furthermore, the defense attorney is the only one that the client has any control over; any prosecutor or judge can be assigned to the case, but the client chooses his own defense attorney. If he threatens the judge and the judge responds by stepping down and letting a different judge take the case, then that's game over.
    • Still, if Phoenix went "Yup, my client is guilty. Throw the book at him.", the judge could say "I can't do that, there's a life at risk". Also, if the judge responded by stepping down and letting a different judge take the case, de Killer could also threaten that other judge.
  • Also, keep in mind that Phoenix Wright, despite his relative lack of experience, is the BEST. He has taken down three of the toughest prosecutors in the country. There is a fair amount of evidence (at least to the in-universe public) that Phoenix can get ANYONE off the hook, no matter how good the prosecution's case is. Furthermore, Phoenix has beaten Franziska twice already and is the ONLY person to ever do so. From De Killer's point of view, Phoenix is capable of getting Engarde a Not Guilty while also exonerating him in the public eye, which having the prosecution throw the case wouldn't do. The only problem is Phoenix's personality, and kidnapping Maya takes care of that. Granted, it probably would have been better for Matt to hire Phoenix and to have only kidnapped Maya after Phoenix learned the truth and tried to drop the case, but De Killer wanted Phoenix extra... motivated, as it were.
    • Also, De Killer might have intended to threaten the prosecutor as well, but then the case got assigned to Franziska, whose family is all in another country or (presumed) dead, and who would not be the least bit deterred by personal threats. Shooting her right before the trial should have gotten the case assigned to someone less prepared and hopefully easier to lean on, but unfortunately for De Killer, Edgeworth picked that moment to make a return.
• Even after De Killer says Adrian is his client, your client will still be found guilty if you run out of health.
  • That's one of those contradictions that appears in pretty much every single case, unfortunately.
• After the first day of trial, you meet Edgeworth and discuss some of the case's issues with him. In the end, he gives you a letter to show to the police at the hotel that will give you permission to investigate, since it was closed off to everyone due to the murder investigation. This scenario raises a question. Given the many prosecutors in this series who are actively trying to ensure that the defense learns as little as possible about the case before the trial, why isn't that tactic used more often? Tell the public, including Phoenix, to not go anywhere near the crime scene, and if he does start snooping around, you can arrest him for it. Why is this a one-case thing?
  • Simple: in any other case, the attorney has the right to investigate. This is a special case, though- there was a special order employed and more police force and funds poured into it- because a notorious assassin-for-hire was involved.
  • There's an interesting quote from Phoenix in 1-5 that may be relevant to this subject. "You know attorneys aren't supposed to examine crime scenes? I'm trying to not stand out too much here, see?"
    • I always took that quote to mean less that attorneys literally aren't allowed to examine crime scenes, and more that it's just considered bad practise/taboo/incredibly uncommon for lawyers to do it, since it's not part of their job description. Which is more or less, to my knowledge at least, how it works in real life. You most likely could waltz up to a crime scene as the suspects lawyer and demand the right to investigate, but you're just "not supposed to". It's kind of made clear through the series that Phoenix and the other lawyers are pretty unconventional lawyers. who don't care about breaking most lawyering taboos, which could be a contributing factor to why they're constantly getting crap flung at them all the time.
• Is there any point for Matt Engarde to randomly send Wright to his mansion to feed his cat, other than making the cat a throwaway plot device? It was a quite risky thing to do for Matt, seeing as it would let Phoenix see the assassin face-to-face, and Maya herself was kept at the very same mansion.
  • Maybe Matt genuinely cares about his cat? He may be a evil bastard who cares about no other human apart from himself, but even evil bastards have certain things they love. Phoenix was the only one who he could ask who would be too much of a good guy to refuse.
    • Matt's "butler" would be a far less risky person to ask to feed the cat, though, and it's the first indication from Phoenix's POV that something is not right (though the player will have more interest in the familiar-looking door to the right). Why would Matt have his lawyer feed the cat when he's got someone paid to do that?
    • As the "quotes" would indicate, Matt's butler isn't actually his butler. He's the assassin. He may have been paid to pose as a butler and hang around in order to blackmail Phoenix, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's being paid to do housework and care for Engarde's pets.
    • Matt didn't know De Killer was posing as his butler to stay close to the crime and have a good place to hide Maya. So he probably genuinely thought he needed to send someone to feed Shoe.
  • Maybe Matt's a sadist and just likes the idea of his hapless lawyer being literal yards away from the one thing keeping him working on the case. Killers aren't always the safest or most logical people, and Matt does seem to enjoy being evil quite a lot.
• Why does Franziska have an autograph from Juan Corrida to a "Wendy," and why does she throw it at you?
  • She was probably skulking around in Juan's hotel room before you got there and might have picked it up just before you arrived, realized it was useless and not evidence-worthy, and tossed it in your direction. As for what it was doing there, Juan probably gets a lot of fanmail, and could easily have been signing an autograph for someone named Wendy before his death.
• After Nick finds out that Matt is guilty, why does he not go to the police or the judge? He could have told the police in secret and had them start looking for De Killer. If he went to the judge outside of court and told him the truth when no one was around, the judge would have known that they would have to find a way to get Matt found guilty. At the very least, the judge could have pulled some strings so Adrian was not found guilty. Yeah, De Killer was going to kill Maya if he heard about this, but if Nick told everyone to keep quiet about it, De Killer would never know.
  • Simply because Phoenix is too concerned about Maya's safety to risk losing her. He has no guarantee the judge would keep Maya's kidnapping under wraps like Edgeworth and Gumshoe instead of adding it to the charges against Engarde. It's easy to pick apart his actions when viewing them from the sidelines, but it's a lot more understandable when the life of someone you care about is on the line.
• How does De Killer leaving his calling card at a crime scene act as insurance for his clients? It's just telling the police that someone hired him to carry out a murder, and that therefore they should be looking for the person who hired him. Which in turn pretty much renders any potential alibis and direct lack of evidence tying someone to the actual act a completely moot point. Surely it actually does more damage then it would help his clients in any way.
  • In Ace Attorney, evidence is everything. Normally, you could prove someone is the culprit because they left some kind of evidence connecting to them in the crime scene. Now, if all you have is a calling card that is known to be left by a hitman... how do you prove that someone hired a hitman and is the culprit? Unless you find a copy of a contract or a video tape involving the hitman talking with the client, you can't. Remember, Engarde was only caught because Andrews set fake evidence on him and that Matt was put into a checkmate situation between confessing he was the client or living the rest of his life as De Killer's target.
• One thing I do not get is at the end of Justice For All, when you give Edgeworth Franziska's whip and you get the extra scene for it, why does Franziska begin to cry before leaving from the airport? Is she that upset that she brought shame to herself for failing to get revenge on Edgeworth?
  • Franziska is a very proud person, just like her father. She repeatedly states that "a von Karma is perfect", so becoming emotional about a failure, any failure, seems appropriate. Plus, it may have been the writers just wanting to humanize her character.
    • Franziska also seems to consider what Edgeworth says, that being a prosecutor isn't about a perfect record but about justice for all, and that's something she needs to learn. It isn't about personal records or anything like that, it's about doing what's right. When she realizes that he was only able to "beat" Phoenix in court by employing those human characteristics that she has shunned, and that her entire philosophy of perfection is wrong, well...it's enough to make anyone break down.
    • And there's also the fact that Phoenix had just willingly accepted his first defeat in court because it is the just outcome he wants, and can have now that Maya's safe.
    • Edgeworth is essentially telling her that she doesn't need to be perfect anymore. Considering that her father had drilled this ideal of "perfection" into her head her whole life, and he's heavily implied to have gotten the death sentence, she's probably really focusing on living up to her father's expectations at this point as a way of upholding his legacy. She's being told, maybe for the first time in her life, that she doesn't need to be perfect to be a good prosecutor.
    • She is also crying because of the last thing that Edgeworth says to her in that scene. Edgeworth says he believes whole-heartedly in her ability to change, to grow beyond what her father taught her. But he also says that he isn't going to force her to remain a prosecutor, and if leaving that life behind is really what she wants, then he won't stop her even though it means she will be exiting his life. In a way, he's offering her a chance at revenge: to walk out on him the way she feels he always walked out on her. And Franziska breaks down because she realizes that she doesn't want that, she doesn't want to lose her big brother. Her statement of "our battle begins now" is her way of saying that of course she won't walk out on Edgeworth, of course exiting his life isn't what she wants. It's a textbook Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moment for two characters involved in a sibling rivalry.
    • Also, it's hard to remember, but Franziska is still just a kid. She might be a legal adult, but barely so, and 18 is still a child in terms of mental development.
• What did de Killer hope to gain by shooting Franziska in the shoulder? It didn't stop his client's case from being prosecuted; in fact, it inadvertently put more pressure on him, since now the prosecution would be looking for whoever shot Franziska. What did it end up gaining him?
  • The logic of it is supposed to be that Franziska is international prosecutor known as a highly skilled prodigy, so her being out of the case automatically makes it easier for Phoenix. Seems fair to say that De Killer was assuming that whatever replacement that got as prosecutor wouldn't be anywhere near as talented. Even assuming that De Killer knew about Edgeworth & his prosecuting prowess, he couldn't have known both that he was actually alive, and that he happened to have recently returned.
  • The prosecutor change in the last minutes before the trial would normally mean that someone in the range from vaguely familiar with the case to totally unprepared takes a stand. And that would be very easy to win over. And fast, without too much looking into details that could possibly damage the client. It's just an unlucky break for him that the prosecutor in question just happened to be Edgeworth.
• Why did the bear figurine end up in the other room by the door in Engarde's mansion?
  • We know Engarde considered the figurine important, so De Killer must have put it there so that, in case Maya breaks out again, she doesn't damage it.
• When Adrian Andrews discovers the body, she frames Matt Engarde by stabbing the victim with a knife that was riddled with only Engarde's fingerprints. However, as the game explains, if she wore gloves or used a cloth when she stabbed him, then the fingerprints would be wiped off. How then was she able to stab the body without erasing Engarde's prints or getting her prints on the knife?
  • The notion that wearing gloves would've wiped the prints off the knife is a pretty flimsy one, to be fair. It definitely sounds possible for her to have handled the knife with gloves without disturbing the prints that were already on it.
  • Also, it was suggested that Adrian should've wiped Engarde's prints away because she was wearing the gloves of the Nickel Samurai costume specifically, which is a different matter than wearing any other pair of more ordinary gloves, or handling the knife with a towel.
  • It's not that hard to explain. It's likely Adrian carried the knife to the crime scene in the mechanical right arm of the Nickel Samurai. Considering it's not a cloth glove, it naturally wouldn't mess with the prints and she could stab him with it. Since she's never shown/stated to be left-handed, this is entirely possible.
• Why did deKiller abduct Maya immediately? He knew Maya's name and that she was important to Phoenix, and how good of an attorney he was, so why didn't he know Maya would demand they go help Matt Engarde? As a player I honestly wish the abduction had waited until Phoenix started to doubt Matt's innocence or until court went into its second day, since that would have kept up some air of Matt actually being innocent just like the rest of the clients. Both to the player and to Phoenix himself, who has doubts early on. Even Gumshoe figures it out immediately that Matt is behind it. I get it's to add pressure and to ensure a speedy trial, but deKiller is clearly fine with a second day and out of Phoenix's 8 (played) cases at that point, only 2 have been one day affairs and they only had one witness apiece. Even the murder of his mentor took two days. Phoenix probably could have swung a second day regardless of his fears about Maya since he's been taught to always believe in his client and it's obvious Matt was framed. The only reason Phoenix was making so many mistakes in court was his panic about Maya's safety.
  • The most likely explanation comes down to deKiller's sense of professionalism. Sure it's possible Maya would have convinced Phoenix to take the case regardless, but that would involve a level of uncertainty which most likely didn't suit deKiller's standard for customer aftercare. Better to immediately get leverage on Phoenix and guarantee his full cooperation from the start.
  • Furthermore, if deKiller was to wait and only kidnap Maya once Phoenix and her got suspicious, it would be much more difficult to lure her away than before anyone realised something was wrong.
  • And from a story perspective, I think the added sense of doubt much more impactful than the twist of Engarde's guilt would have been without the kidnapping. Every other case had a clearly innocent client, and Engarde feels like the rest of them to begin with. But then why would someone kidnap to get him acquitted? Is he guilty? But then how could he testify to not having killed anyone? And all the evidence seems to be planted anyhow. Both Phoenix and the player are forced to carry around that sense of doubt throughout the first half of the case. I for one spent the first half of the case half expecting some third party to appear right up until the reveal.

---