Turnabout Succession

Episode 4: Turnabout Succession is the final episode in the video game Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. This episode introduces the Jurist System, in which the verdict is decided by the consensus of six average citizens. As such, this episode features the only jury trial in the Ace Attorney universe to date, previous episodes having featured bench trials in which the judge decided the verdict.

Central to this this episode is Phoenix Wright's final trial, which took place seven years before Apollo Justice became a lawyer.

Prologue
The first opening scene depicts a computer system called the MASON System, which guides the player through four different scenes from the past and the present. The player is told that he or she would decide the defendant's verdict, and then the scene ends with a foreboding image of Kristoph Gavin under a spotlight.

Prologue
The opening scene starts similarly to Turnabout Trump. Phoenix Wright and Zak Gramarye are playing poker. Gramarye loses; he tells Wright that it is the second time he has ever lost, the first being to the man he was accused of killing: his mentor Magnifi Gramarye.

Part 1
It was two months since the incident at Eagle Mountain, and Phoenix Wright had just been appointed to a new case, not knowing all the details. Zak apologized for the short notice. They talked about the logistics of the trial; the prosecutor was new, but he had gained a reputation of being a genius. Wright was undeterred, though; to his recollection, a genius had appeared every year, and he had beaten them all. Zak introduced Wright to his young daughter Trucy Enigmar. Zak then assured Wright that it would be impossible for him to get a guilty verdict.

Trucy Enigmar then gave Wright what appeared to be a page from someone's diary; she had no idea what the page was for and was only instructed to give it to Wright.

The trial began with Wright and the new prosecutor, Klavier Gavin, addressing the judge. Wright took a dislike to Gavin's rock-star attitude from the get-go. Dick Gumshoe took the stand first, determined to best Wright this time. Unfortunately for the detective, however, Wright blew through his testimony in a very similar fashion to previous cases.

Part 2
Gavin then called forth his next witness: the defendant's partner Valant Gramarye.

Valant asserted that he had shot the doll's forehead and that Zak had shot Magnifi. However, Wright was able to disprove it by pointing out the color of the liquid in the IV bag and the amount in the syringe.

Gavin brought forth Magnifi's diary. Seeing that his opponent had not noticed that there was a page missing, Wright then presented the missing page. Gavin suddenly requested that the cross-examination be put on hold to make way for a new witness. Just then, Wright began to realize that he was too quick in presenting suspicious evidence.

The surprise witness, Drew Misham, testified that the diary page was a fake. He made a mark on all his "works" so that he would be able to identify them. The judge was shocked beyond belief: Wright had just presented illegal evidence in court. It was all a trap from the very beginning.

Just as Zak was about receive his verdict, he told the judge that it would be impossible for him to hand down a guilty verdict because one had to exist to be convicted. The judge was confused; he asked what Zak meant, and the defendant replied, "I am talking... about this!" With that, the defendant vanished from the courtroom. Gavin gave an order to seal the doors, but it was too late. The only person who managed to find him got distracted and lost the chase.

May 13, 2019
Two weeks after the trial, Wright summoned Trucy to his office. He had called around, but he could not find any of Trucy's relatives, so he offered to adopt her.

Wright learned that Trucy had a mother who had apparently died three years prior.

Defendant Lobby No. 2
Wright returned to the defendant lobby in which he had prepared for his final trial. Here, he met the baliff, Mike Meekins, who had been fired from his original job as a police officer due to having lost four case files in three days. Wright asked him about his encounter with Enigmar.

Drew Studio
Phoenix's investigation leads him here. He finds out, by coaxing both Drew and Vera Misham, that Kristoph Gavin was the one who requested the forgery.

Detention Center
Wright visited the Detention Center to find that Valant Gramarye had been arrested. He was suspected of being the real killer; the popular belief was that Zak had vanished to take the fall and protect Valant from his crime.

Apr. 16, 2026
One day at the Borscht Bowl Club, Zak returned under the guise of traveler Shadi Smith.

Solitary Cell 13
Some time after the nightmare trial, Phoenix Wright was put before a hearing of several of his fellow attorneys. They all insisted that Wright was responsible for the forgery of that diary page, and that he should be stripped of his attorney's badge. Of all the lawyers to stand up for him, only Kristoph Gavin defended Phoenix on the allegations (though it was a ploy to cover his tracks).

Sunshine Colosseum
Valant revealed that Magnifi had shot himself.

Valant had, indeed, come with the intent to kill Magnifi and frame Zak for it. However, he had not been able to bring himself to do it and he had dropped the gun. Magnifi had then woken up and told Valant that he had failed the test and that he had already given the rights to Zak. This had left Valant in a state of shock as he left the room. He had then heard a gunshot and gone back to the room to find Magnifi dead. Valant had decided to frame Zak after all, which was why he had tampered with the IV bag.

Solitary Cell 13
Wright returned to Kristoph Gavin's cell to find it devoid of its resident. Wright saw his chance to look at the yellow envelope. He sent the guard away to "find out" what Kristoph was doing, and then he went to work. He verified that it was the letter that Drew had written, telling Kristoph to remove the "magic spell" he had on Vera. He sprayed an indicator chemical on the stamp, verifying that it was the poisoned murder weapon. However, before he could leave with the letter, Kristoph arrived, accusing Wright of burglary. Wright said that Vera had not received her verdict yet, implying that there was still hope for the case. Kristoph asked for the envelope back, and Wright was obliged to comply.

Oct. 7-8
The jury finished playing Wright's "game", the scenes of which he had recorded from a spy camera on his hat. Wright reproduced the contents of the letter for Justice to use.

Final trial
Court reconvened. The judge asked Klavier about Vera Misham's condition. Klavier answered that Vera had been poisoned with atroquinine and could die at any time. Hearing this, Trucy protested the trial's continuation, but Justice knew that with the defendant's life at risk, the trial had to be concluded with a final verdict. Klavier knew from experience what a trial without a verdict would do to everyone involved. Justice was also determined not to let that happen. Wright had told him all about his investigations over the last seven years, and he was ready to fight for the innocent verdict.

Klavier gave his opening statement; he claimed that what happened to Vera changed nothing about his position because Vera had poisoned herself out of guilt for what she had done. It was even more appropriate to him that she had used the same atroquinine poison, which was hard to come by, that had killed her father. Justice insisted that Vera was a victim, not the killer. Klavier gave him two things to prove: who had poisoned Vera and how he or she had done it.

Unlike the day before, Justice was fully prepared: he answered that Kristoph Gavin had poisoned Vera through her bottle of nail polish. Justice had noticed Vera's habit of biting her nails when she became nervous; Kristoph must have noticed this as well and used it to his advantage. As for Kristoph's obvious alibi, Justice said that he could have poisoned the bottle at any time - seven years ago, for instance.

Justice worked out the details: Kristoph had known that whoever defended Zak successfully in court would garner much fame among the public and respect in legal circles, upcoming lawyer Kristoph Gavin found someone he could hire to do the unthinkable: forge evidence. He met with Ms. Vera Misham, daughter of the painter Drew Misham to fabricate a page from Magnifi's journal which would implicate Valant instead of Zak. He noticed that whenever Vera became nervous, she'd have a habit of biting her nails. Not wanting her to talk about his involvement, Gavin laced a bottle of Ariadoney nail polish with atroquinine poison and lied to her about the nail polish being a magic charm.

However, before the trial date, Zak Gramarye had invited him to play poker. Kristoph had lost the game, and Zak had promptly dismissed him as his attorney. Kristoph could not understand what had happened; as far as he could tell, he had been fired because he had lost in a card game, and then he had been replaced by Phoenix Wright, "a second rate attorney who relies on luck and bluffs!"

Upon learning about this, he had gone to his younger brother Klavier and told him that he wouldn't appear at the trial the next day. He then told the younger Gavin about Phoenix presenting bogus evidence there and instructed him to bring out Drew Misham to testify. He then handed off the forged evidence to Trucy Enigmar, and told her to give it to Wright.

Kristoph declared that everything had gone perfectly. Klavier laughed in response, as he had realized the truth: Kristoph had been living in fear for the past seven years. Because Zak Gramarye disappeared from the courtroom, no verdict was ever given for that case. If Zak ever reappeared, or the Mishams talked, the fact that he had ordered the forgery would have become known, and his coverup would be blown.

He tried to kill Vera again by sending her an invoice for the forgery he ordered, and included a stamp laced with atroquinine. However, Vera liked the stamp so much she kept it, sending the receipt back with a different stamp. Once again, Kristoph failed to kill the Mishams. Desparate to protect his secret, Kristoph had kept tabs on all parties involved in the Magnifi Gramarye case: the Mishams, Brushel and Wright.

Then came the events of Turnabout Trump, where Kristoph killed Shadi Smith, who Justice revealed was really Zak Gramarye. At this point, Kristoph brushed off Justice's accusations, claiming that the man he killed was "a traveler named Shadi Smith," about whom little else is known. The judge is forced to concur, claiming they've gotten very far off track. This is supposed to be Vera's trial, after all.

Kristoph laughed, knowing that, without decisive evidence, Justice couldn't make his case. However, Klavier took the opportunity to drop a bomb: decisive evidence used to be necessary, but this case was a test trial for the Jurist System, which means the jurists will decide the case. Decisive evidence is no longer necessary. Justice added his own salt to the wound by revealing that Wright was behind the Jurist System's setup.

Kristoph had a breakdown of epic proportions on the Witness Stand, screaming that the law is absolute. Klavier reminded him that the law is anything but absolute, and, in truth, it's full of contradictions.

Verdict
After the trial concluded, Phoenix Wright addressed the jurists, stating that it was now time for them to deliver the verdict. Was Vera Misham innocent or guilty? It was up to them now. Jurist 6 questioned her validity as a jurist, because "jurist members are not supposed to be involved with the case." Wright reassured her, telling her that she wasn't involved with the development of the case, so she was a legal jurist.

If the Player Chooses Guilty
The trial was suspended due to a hung jury, and the verdict would have to wait until the next day. Unfortunately, Vera's condition worsened and she died of the poison that night, resulting in her trial ending with no verdict given.

If the Player Chooses Innocent
Vera was found innocent by unanimous decision, and Kristoph laughed a laugh that echoed through the courtroom as he was taken away. The next day, a miracle occured, as Vera fully recovered from her poisoning and became much more open and outspoken to Trucy and Apollo.

Elsewhere, Wright was meeting up with another survivor, Thalassa Gramarye. She had recovered her sight and her memory, and was happy that her two children, Trucy and Apollo, had grown up so well. Wright promised to take care of both of them.

Jurist System

 * Main article: Jurist System

On the first day of the proceedings, the judge is about to hand down a verdict before Klavier objects, and can give a guilty verdict given enough penalties on the defense. This contradicts the general idea of a jury trial, that the jurists are supposed to be responsible for handing down a verdict.

Title
The title of this episode can refer to many aspects of succession in the story. Apollo succeeds Phoenix; the new Jurist System succeeds the previous one; and Trucy inherits her family's magic tricks.