The First Turnabout

Episode 1: The First Turnabout is the first episode of the game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and follows Phoenix Wright's first case as a defense attorney. He defends his childhood friend Larry Butz in the murder of Cindy Stone. Phoenix Wright, Mia Fey, Larry Butz and Winston Payne make their debuts.

This episode is the shortest in the series, consisting of a single trial chapter, and may also be considered a "tutorial".

The crime
A man was holding a bloody statue of "The Thinker". At his feet is a dead woman, bleeding from her head. The man, not wanting to be caught, decided to pin the murder on a man he had seen earlier...

The trial
Phoenix Wright was nervous at the prospect of being in court as a defense attorney for the first time especially since his first trial was a murder case, but his mentor, Mia Fey, soon appeared to give him some moral support as well as a copy of the victim's autopsy report. Wright also met a panic-stricken Butz and helped to calm his nerves; Butz seemed to be more concerned about a life without his girlfriend than his verdict.

In the courtroom itself, both Prosecutor Winston Payne and Wright addressed the judge, who tested Wright on the basic details of the case to determine whether he was ready to defend his client. He then asked Payne for the murder weapon, and Payne brought the statue of the Thinker into evidence. Butz then took the stand, claiming that he and the victim had been destined to be together. Payne then provided a motive for Butz to have committed the murder: Stone had just dumped him and had many rich male friends who paid for her expensive gifts. Payne followed up with a question to Butz, asking where he had been on the day of the murder. Butz said he had visited the apartment, but when he arrived the victim had not been home, so he had left. Payne replied he had a witness that said otherwise.

The prosecution called Frank Sahwit, a newspaper salesman, to the stand. Sahwit testified that at 1:00 p.m, he saw Butz quickly leaving Stone's apartment. Suspicious, he went to investigate, and found Stone's dead body. He left to find a public payphone, to contact the police. The judge asked why Sahwit had not used the victim's phone, but Payne explained that there was a five-hour blackout at the time that prevented him from doing so.

In the subsequent cross-examination, Wright pointed out that the autopsy report placed the time of death at 4:00 p.m., so Sahwit could not have found Stone dead at 1:00 pm. Payne objected that Sahwit just forgot the time, but the judge doubted this. Sahwit was very sure of the time in his testimony, and the judge asked him why.

Sawhit claimed that he heard the time from the T.V, but Wright proved this to be impossible, due to the blackout. Sahwit then claimed that he saw the time from a clock in Stone's apartment, which was used as the murder weapon. Wright objected again; the weapon was a statue, not a clock.

Payne revealed that the Thinker statue doubled as a clock; by tilting it, it spoke the time. Wright did not let up; Sahwit could not have known about the clock function without having held it in his hand. He sounded the clock to prove that it was working on the day of the murder, although it was three hours slow. Wright stated that Sahwit assumed the time to be 1:00 p.m. because he was the real killer. As he killed Stone, the clock announced the time, leaving a strong impression on him.

Sahwit then began breaking down and threw his toupee at Wright. He made one final claim: unless Wright could prove the time was wrong on the day of the murder, Sahwit could not have done it. Wright presented his final evidence, Stone's passport from her trip to Paris. The clock was nine hours ahead from being set to Paris local time; Stone had taken the clock with her on her trip and had neglected to reset the time. Sahwit was arrested, and Butz was cleared of all charges.

It was revealed that Sahwit was a common burglar who masked his trade by posing as a newspaper salesman to learn when residents left their homes. He planned to rob Stone's apartment, while she was on her trip to Paris. When he arrived, he saw Larry Butz leaving the apartment and decided to steal the valuables quickly before anyone returned. However, Stone happened to return just then and caught him in her apartment. Sahwit panicked and struck her once on the head with the nearest item he could find; the Thinker clock, killing her. The clock's voice rang out 'I think it's 1 o'clock', and Stone died from the head trauma.

Aftermath
After the trial, Fey congratulated Wright on his win. Butz interrupted in hysterics again, this time believing that Stone did not care about him. Wright then presented the clock to him; she would not have carried a bulky clock around unless it had some significance. Butz gave Fey another Thinker clock; he had made two as a memento of his and Stone's relationship. Fey and Wright then went out to dinner.

Development
This case was not the first case in early drafts of Gyakuten Saiban; Turnabout Sisters was. However, major changes in character designs and roles, notably of the mentor, the assistant and prosecutors Winston Payne and Miles Edgeworth, called for drastic changes to that case, and another case was placed before Turnabout Sisters as the first case, which became The First Turnabout.