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.

The Crime
Frank Sahwit, a common burglar who masked his trade by pretending to be a newspaper salesman, planned to rob the home of Cindy Stone. When he arrived, he saw Larry Butz leaving the apartment and decided to steal the valuables quickly before anyone returned. However, Cindy Stone happened to arrive and caught him in her apartment. He picked up the nearest item he could find, a clock in the shape of a statue called 'The Thinker', and smashed her with it over the head, killing her. The clock then struck 1 o'clock. Sahwit decided to frame the man he saw earlier. Since there was a power cut at the time, he went outside to find a payphone and called the police. They soon arrived, and after Sahwit gave his testimony to them, they went to arrest Larry Butz.

The Trial
Phoenix Wright was nervous at the prospect of being in court as a defense attorney for the first time, 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 Larry soon and helped to calm his nerves; Larry seemed to be more concerned about his life without his girlfriend than his verdict. In the courtroom itself, both Prosecutor Winston Payne and Wright addressed the judge who tested Phoenix on the basic details of the case to determine whether he was ready for the case. He then asked Payne for the murder weapon, and Payne brought the statue of the Thinker into evidence. Larry then took the stand, claiming that Cindy was alive when he visited the apartment. Payne then provided a motive for Larry to have committed the murder; Stone had just dumped him and had many rich male friends who paid for her expensive gifts.

The prosecution called Frank Sahwit to the stand. Sahwit testified that he discovered the body at 1:00 p.m., and that there was a blackout that prevented him from using the victim's phone. Phoenix objected, stating that the autopsy report placed the time of death at 4:00 p.m. Sawhit then claimed that he heard the time from the T.V, which could not have happened because of the blackout, and then he claimed that he saw the time from the Thinker statue, the clock of which he could not have known without holding it in his hand. The court sounded the clock to prove that it was working on the day of the murder, although it was three hours slow. Sahwit then freaked out and chucked his wig at Wright. He made one final claim: unless he could prove the time was wrong on the day of the murder, he could not have done it. Phoenix 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. Sahwit was arrested, and Larry was cleared of all charges.

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