"I killed a man named 'Smith' with a bottle because I am an evil human being. ...Isn't that enough?"
— The true villain, Apollo Justice, Episode 4: Turnabout Succession
In the world of Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and their allies face all kinds of criminals. Some are goofy, some are tragic, some are magnificent...and then there are these nastiest criminals that have taken the stand.
Characters are listed where they're most prominent, but may have an impact or appear elsewhere.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Multiple games
- Phoenix Wright's Turnabout Goodbyes & Investigations 2's The Inherited Turnabout: Manfred von Karma is an amoral prosecutor who uses underhanded tactics to maintain his perfect win streak. Manfred is desperate enough to preserve his winning streak that he takes to subjecting Jeffrey Master to a whole year of psychological torment to break him into confessing, finally coercing him after spitefully threatening to get his beloved daughter convicted instead. When defense attorney Gregory Edgeworth gets him penalized in a trial by exposing his illegal tactics, Manfred becomes enraged despite still winning said trial, taking the chance given by an earthquake striking the courtroom to catch up with Gregory and his son Miles in an elevator and murdering Gregory, leading to Miles having nightmares about the fact he might have killed his father every day for 15 years. Taking Miles under his wing, Manfred raises him to become a cold, ruthless prosecutor who cares for nothing but always winning a guilty verdict. Setting up a second murder, Manfred plans to frame Miles for both it and his own father's death, intending to see his adoptive son convicted for murder as the final act of his revenge against Gregory.
Main series
- Phoenix Wright's Turnabout Sisters: Redd White is the flamboyantly narcissistic CEO of Bluecorp, a company that specializes in "buying and selling information"—which translates to the systemic blackmail of hundreds. Redd White holds the lives of hundreds of people in his sway with his industrial blackmail, such as the Fey clan, whom he ruined by exposing their part in the DL-6 investigation, and Marvin Grossberg, whom he's turned into his tormented stooge for 15 years by threatening to leave him to the police for his role in the DL-6 catastrophe. Redd has ruined so many lives he's driven a sizable amount of people to suicide, to the point it takes up the largest space in the evidence folder Mia Fey compiled against him. Redd personally murdered Mia because of this, attempting to frame her younger sister Maya for it. When Phoenix Wright comes onto the case, Redd attempts to frame Phoenix for Mia's murder.
- Trials and Tribulations: Dahlia Hawthorne is a petty sociopath who hides her devilish personality underneath an elegant façade. Having previously manipulated her boyfriend Terry Fawles into assisting her in a robbery meant to spite her family, before killing her stepsister Valerie and framing him for the murder, Dahlia ensured Fawles's suicide to warrant her freedom. Poisoning defense attorney Diego Armando as revenge against Mia Fey for almost getting her convicted, Dahlia seduced Phoenix Wright to cover her tracks, killing his friend Doug Swallow for trying to warn him and framing Phoenix for it after her attempts to poison him failed. Despite being executed, Dahlia returns as a vengeful ghost, aiding her mother Morgan Fey in her plan to kill Maya Fey solely to spite Mia's spirit.
- Apollo Justice's Turnabout Trump & Turnabout Succession: Kristoph Gavin is a seemingly-helpful mentor who is really one half of the diabolical duo to usher in "The Dark Age of the Law" by disbarring Phoenix Wright. Kristoph did this out of a petty grudge for Phoenix being chosen as a lawyer for a client instead of him, and so murders said client and manipulates a shy artist and his own brother to enact his vengeance. Poisoning both the artist and her father, Kristoph intended for both to die, gloating to Apollo that he knew the latter's line of questioning would make her nervously bite her nails, where he had put the poison. Having started poisoning the artist when she was only twelve, Kristoph is happy to then sit back and watch her face conviction for her own father's murder committed by himself.
- Dual Destinies: The Phantom is a mysterious international super spy and the other figure responsible for "The Dark Age of the Law". Murdering multiple people to assume their identities, the phantom has no qualms over the suffering his actions cause, allowing the neighbors of one of his victims to believe she had been killed by her 11-year-old daughter. Sabotaging a rocket, the phantom nearly kills the astronaut aboard and years later bombs an entire space station; he later murdered yet another astronaut, Apollo's best friend, and framed the astronaut's coworker. Attempting to bomb a courtroom to destroy a piece of evidence, the phantom is willing to kill hundreds to get away and tries to frame Athena and her friend for his atrocities.
- Spirit of Justice: Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in is the sadistic megalomaniac responsible for the draconic legal system of the Kingdom of Khura'in. After being passed over for the throne in favor of her gentle sister Amara due to lacking spiritual power, jealously led to Ga'ran orchestrating multiple attempts on Amara's life in order to strong-arm her into going into hiding while framing Amara's husband Dhurke for her apparent murder. After seizing the throne, Ga'ran passed the Defense Culpability Act, which would force a defense attorney to suffer the same fate as the accused upon losing a case; this led to hundreds, if not thousands, of unjust deaths of defendants and lawyers alike under Khura'in's one-sided court system. Completely uncaring towards her own family, Ga'ran forces Amara and her nephew Nahyuta to cater to her whims on threat of ruining her niece Rayfa's life, and doesn't hesitate to blackmail them into taking the fall for a murder she committed or secretly ordering for Amara to be shot in court. Heartless enough to leave the baby Apollo Justice to die in a fire which she started—and killing Apollo's father while leaving—and egomaniacal to the point of making standing up to her a crime worthy of execution, Ga'ran proved to be among Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice's most depraved foes yet.
- Investigations: Miles Edgeworth duology:
- First game's Turnabout Ablaze: Quercus Alba, while initially seeming like a frail, kind old man, turns out to be the hardened, cold-hearted boss of a large and powerful smuggling ring. Thanks to him putting many highly-convincing counterfeit bills into circulation, the country of Zheng Fa has been thrown into economic chaos due to his machinations. He also ordered the deaths of Cece Yew, Deid Mann, and Byrne Faraday due to their efforts in trying to expose his role in the smuggling ring, and personally murdered Mask*DeMasque II and his subordinate Manny Coachen: DeMasque II for stealing the fake statue that contained the plates used for creating counterfeit bills, and Coachen due to him seeking to steal power of the smuggling ring from under Alba's nose. Ruthless and rotten to the core, Alba will kill anyone without so much as a second thought for the sake of keeping his criminal empire running.
- Second game: Blaise Debeste is the Chairman of the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee—P.I.C.—whose cruel nature has led to the corruption of the justice system. A self-proclaimed sadist and bully, Blaise's greatest joy has always been ruining lives with his prosecution tactics, boasting that he has sent hundreds of people to life imprisonment after pretending he would offer them a plea bargain. Blaise has fabricated evidence, faked autopsies, and framed innocents for decades, abusing the prosecution system so freely that he hosts Black Market auctions of important evidence. Blaise is the one who drove Manfred von Karma to murder by tricking him into using a fake autopsy to send an innocent man to prison, only to then penalize The Perfectionist von Karma for fun. A dreadful father to his son Sebastian, Blaise has abused the boy for years and tried to mold him into a perfect prosecutor, and responds to Sebastian's repeated failures by bullying him into a total breakdown. Having helped murder the President of Zheng Fa to empower his body double to take his place, Blaise also helps murder reporter Jack Cameron to cover it up, and later kills Cameron's girlfriend when she comes seeking revenge. Blaise then tries to frame an amnesiac Kay Faraday for the killing, and when he is eventually exposed for his many crimes, Blaise tries to kidnap the judge's son and threaten him with death to get away scot-free.
- The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: "Jezaille Brett", real name Asa Shinn, is a sadistically xenophobic assassin sent by the justice system of Britain, one of the most important members of the main conspiracy in the game, and the most despicable of them for lacking any of the good intentions of her co-conspirators. Already known as an assassin in the dark corners of London, Shinn was hired by Mael Stronghart to assassinate every person who escaped the guilty verdict from the cases of Barok van Zieks, with a total of 16 victims killed in numerous "accidents", effectively being the one who made van Zieks into "The Reaper of The Bailey". Later on, Shinn would be sent to Japan under a fake identity to be a student of John Wilson, only for her to assassinate him with an agonizing, undiscovered poison, and later shooting the corpse for Ryunosuke Naruhodo to take the fall. When Brett was pulled to the trial of the murder, she would make racist remarks against the Japanese throughout the trial, and at one point, break an important piece of evidence just to laugh about her untouchable superiority. Taking pleasure in the pain of others, especially of other races, it's her own hatred and narcissism that leads to her death, even when she was already about to remain scot-free from her crimes.
Other Media
- 2012 film: Manfred von Karma, while hiding under a polite exterior, proves to be just as vile as his game counterpart. To maintain a perfect win streak, Manfred has falsified and concealed evidence for years, murdering Gregory Edgeworth when he attempts to find proof of this. When Mia Fey is on the verge of solving said murder, known as the DL-6 Incident, Manfred hires the reporter, Redd White, to murder her. Later on, he sends a letter to Yanni Yogi, the suspect of the DL-6 Incident, detailing a plan to murder Robert Hammond and how to frame Manfred's adoptive son, Miles Edgeworth for it. When Phoenix finds out there's a connection between the DL-6 incident and the Robert Hammond murder, Manfred has Redd White poisoned to death to ensure Phoenix can't get information from him. He then intends to have Miles be declared guilty for the murder of Gregory. While he claims that his actions are for the sake of ensuring criminals are punished, von Karma proves himself to simply be an arrogant hypocrite willing to commit any atrocity for the sake of his reputation.
- Farewell, My Turnabout 2015 stage play: Matt Engarde shows himself to be far worse than his already-loathsome original incarnation. A famous idol-turned-television star with a bitter hatred for fellow actor Juan Corrida, a few years ago, Matt had set about to ruin Juan's life by tricking Juan's fiancée Celeste Impax into getting raped, ruining her reputation with the public and convincing her to commit suicide. Having Juan killed years later to cover up his impact on Celeste, Matt plans to blackmail his own assassin Shelly de Killer in an attempt to hold one over him, while having him threaten the life of Maya Fey if Phoenix Wright doesn't acquit him of Juan's murder and declare his manager, Adrian Andrews, the culprit.
- 2016 anime's Season 2: Dahlia Hawthorne remains a sociopathic and demented girl hiding her evil nature under a nice disposition. Manipulating her boyfriend Terry Fawles and staging her death to place him on death row after organizing an extortion plot on her adopted parents, Dahlia murdered her stepsister and got Terry to poison himself to make sure she gets off scot-free. Poisoning defense attorney Diego Armando into a coma, Dahlia charms Phoenix Wright into being her fall guy and intends to kill him to cover her tracks. Murdering her ex-boyfriend Doug Swallow to keep her secrets quiet, she strong arms Phoenix into keeping quiet before framing him for the murders. Vengeful against Mia Fey, Dahlia works with her mother Morgan after her execution, attempting to possess Pearl to murder Mia's sister Maya out of vengeance.
