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Juniper Woods
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Juniper Woods is a childhood friend of Athena Cykes. A third-year student and the student council president at the Themis Legal Academy, she is studying to be a judge. A somewhat meek and quiet girl, Woods has a habit of going into coughing fits when stressed.

Early life[]

Woods, like Cykes, didn't attend school regularly when she was younger due to health issues; Woods herself suffered from frequent coughing fits, while Cykes found it hard to be around groups of people due to her ability to pick up subtle emotions from peoples' voices. Although both girls were quiet, they got along with one another and soon became good friends. However, after Cykes's mother was murdered, she was sent to live in Europe. After a while, the two started exchanging letters, but they wouldn't meet face-to-face again for seven years.

Woods was apparently very popular with the opposite sex during her time at school, although she was oblivious to their attention. Cykes has claimed that boys would often hand her love letters before asking her to give them to Woods, much to the disappointment of Cykes.[1]

Proof of friendship[]

Themis Trio

With Newman and O'Conner.

Woods went on to join the judge course at Themis Legal Academy. There, she became the student council president and put on a stern persona. She befriended the prosecutor course student Robin Newman and the defense attorney course student Hugh O'Conner, with Newman making handmade bands for them to wear as proof of their friendship. The three vowed to hold fair trials and put an end to the dark age that had been plaguing the legal system. However, said dark age's influence on the school soon began to affect their friendship, with O'Conner adhering to Professor Aristotle Means' ideals of winning trials by any means necessary, while Woods followed Constance Courte's teachings that the truth was more important than results, and Newman respected the ideals of both teachers.

Courte eventually asked Woods to report any students to her who had strayed from the path of justice. One day, Woods overheard a phone conversation between O'Conner and his parents and found out that they had been bribing the school for his good grades, after which she reported him to Courte. O'Conner figured out that Woods had reported him, further straining their friendship.

Murder at the academy[]

Main article: Turnabout Academy
TurnaboutAcademyPicture1

With Professor Courte during the mock trial preparations.

For the school festival in her senior year, Woods was required to write a script that would be used in a mock trial. She was also chosen to sing "The Guitar's Serenade" alongside Klavier Gavin as part of the festivities. Woods' script was chosen, but its contents were kept privy only to her and Courte in order to keep the trial's "plot" a secret from the participants. On the night before the trial, Woods assisted Courte with preparations in the art room until 6 p.m., then returned to her dressing room to apply fluorescent paint to her stage costume. As she was leaving the school around 7 p.m., Woods saw O'Conner in the hallway and noticed his hands were dripping with blood.

The next morning, Woods returned to her dressing room to pick up some props for the mock trial, including an awl which now had what looked like red paint on it. Just before the trial was due to start, Woods met Phoenix Wright, who had been recently reinstated as an attorney and invited to give a lecture at the academy. Wright had brought along his two employees as well; Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes. Woods was shocked to so suddenly meet her childhood friend again, whom she hadn't seen in seven years. Adding to this was Cykes' complete change in personality. Gone was the quiet and shy girl she had known, replaced by a far more confident and outgoing young woman.

However, while the mock trial was underway, the dead body of Courte was found on the outdoor stage by Cykes and Wright, and the mock trial was abruptly cut short before a verdict could be given. While they were waiting for the police to come, Cykes questioned Woods, Newman, and O'Conner about the mock trial, and she sensed some discord in their voices when they talked about their friendship. When the police arrived, Woods was arrested on the grounds that Courte's murder had been enacted in a very similar way to her script, as well as the fact that the awl she still had in her pocket turned out to have Courte's blood on it. While Woods was being taken away, Cykes stepped up and said she act as her defense attorney. When Cykes went to question Woods at the detention center, Woods dropped her strong facade, showing her true, more meek, self to Cykes and Justice.

During the trial the next day, Cykes found herself driven into a corner due to the decisive evidence presented by Prosecutor Simon Blackquill. Newman then confessed to the murder in an attempt to protect Woods, after which Woods herself confessed to prevent Newman from taking the fall, followed by O'Conner doing the same. This left the judge with no choice but to end the trial for the day so that the prosecution and defense could investigate further.

When Cykes and Justice went back to the detention center after the trial, Justice sensed that Woods was lying to them about something. After finding her tell, Woods told them that she had seen O'Conner walking out of the art room with bloodstained hands, which had led her to think he was the murderer, as well as the fact that she was Professor Courte's snitch and that she had figured out that O'Conner was bribing the school. She had refused to talk about it for fear that O'Conner would be incriminated, and believed herself to be a horrible friend for suspecting him. However, the following day in court, Cykes proved that Means was the one who had been taking bribes from O'Conner's parents, and that he had killed Courte when she found out.

Juniper on Stage

On stage for her performance of "The Guitar's Serenade".

After the trial, Woods thanked Cykes and Justice, but also blushed and started knitting a heart-patterned scarf when talking to the latter. Although the school festival had been initially canceled, it was extended for one more day in Courte's memory, and Woods went on to sing "The Guitar's Serenade" while Cykes, Justice, Newman, and O'Conner watched from the audience. Before she began singing, she caught sight of Justice and began blushing again. Her performance went perfectly, with Newman in particular praising her singing voice.

The courtroom bombing[]

Main article: Turnabout Countdown
Looking for Polly

Looking for Justice in the courtroom ruins with Cykes and Wright.

Less than two months after the murder at Themis Legal Academy, Justice took on the defense of the astronaut Solomon Starbuck, and Woods went to the courthouse to watch the trial and lend her support, bringing her Bum Rap Rhiny doll with her cough medicine in the compartment. She gave him a lotus root for good luck and to heal his covered eye, but he bit into it despite being raw and tough to chew. During the trial, Ted Tonate from police bomb disposal suddenly announced that there was a live bomb in the courtroom. Woods tripped and fell trying to escape, but Justice shielded her from falling rubble, albeit being injured himself in the process. In the confusion, Woods lost her Bum Rap Rhiny doll she had brought with her, and her cough medicine.

Woods ended up being accused of both the bombing and the murder of Detective Candice Arme, who it was thought had died in the explosion. Justice was initially her defense attorney, but passed the case to Wright and Cykes due to his injuries. While Woods was resting in the defendant lobby during the trial, Justice offered to help her look for her doll in the ruins of Courtroom No. 4, but Woods was soon called to the stand to testify. Although she was barely able to get her words out due to the badgering of Prosecutor Gaspen Payne, Cykes managed to use her Mood Matrix to calm her down and help her testify. Wright then showed that the stuffed animal tail found in the destroyed courtroom with Woods' fingerprints on it belonged to Bum Rap Rhiny, rather than the Phony Phanty doll which had contained the bomb.

However, after court was adjourned for the day, Woods, Cykes, and Wright found Justice lying unconscious in the courtroom ruins from a blow to the head. Payne tried to accuse Woods of the assault the following day, as she had been alone with Justice shortly before the attack, but Wright was able to prove that Detective Arme's killer and the person who had assaulted Justice was Ted Tonate, thus proving Woods' innocence.

Visiting the Cosmos Space Center[]

Main articles: Turnabout for Tomorrow

Two days after her acquittal, Woods heard that Cykes had been arrested, suspected of the same murder as Starbuck. Woods visited the Cosmos Space Center, where the crime had occurred, to look for Wright. She met him in the building's Space Museum and proceeded to tell him about Cykes' childhood. Woods told Wright that Cykes had grown up at the space center with her mother, and that the center's robots were her only real company while she was there. This lead helped Wright to eventually figure out not only the truth behind the current case, but also the murder of Cykes's mother, thus clearing Cykes of all charges. Woods then joined the defense attorneys and their friends at a local noodle stand for a celebratory meal.

Personality[]

Juniper Woods mugshot

In casual clothes.

JuniperSchoolMugshot

In her school uniform.

Although a shy and meek girl, Woods puts on a stern and confident persona in her role as the student council president. Her health has always been poor, which manifests itself as coughing fits when she is stressed or upset; she controls these by breathing from the sunflowers she wears on her head, similar to how an asthmatic uses an inhaler. When she drops her persona, she also has the habit of pausing and stuttering during everyday conversation.

Woods has something of a crush on Apollo Justice; when thinking about him she wears a dreamy facial expression and knits a very long scarf with an abundance of hearts on it. According to her (while talking with Cykes), just thinking about him gives her strength, especially when he smiled at her when there seemed to be no hope. Woods enjoys gardening, knitting, and sewing; she claimed to have made her casual clothes herself.

Like her friends Newman and O'Conner, Woods took the friendship between them very seriously, to the point that she was greatly distressed at the possibility of O'Conner being a murderer. She wears one of three bands made by Newman as their "proof of friendship" on her right wrist, and clings to it habitually as a reminder of their friendship when worried.

According to Cykes, Woods has always been popular with the opposite sex. Boys would always want to be around her, and she would regularly receive love letters during her childhood. Woods herself didn't realize however, but this aspect of her personality allegedly made her more "irresistible".[1]

Name[]

  • Japanese - Shinobu Morizumi (森澄 しのぶ):
    • The "mori" (森) in her Japanese surname means "forest".
    • Depending on the kanji used, her Japanese given name "Shinobu" can mean "endure", "purify", "belief", "intention", "recall", or "remember".
  • English - Juniper Woods:
    • Both her given and family names in the English version are botanically-themed; juniper being a type of coniferous plant. This is in keeping with her casual clothing having plant motifs.
    • Her English surname is a possible reference to the surname she has in Japanese.
  • French - Marguerite Dubois:
    • "Marguerite" is French for "daisy", which would continue the botanic theme seen in her English name.
    • Her French surname is a play on "du bois" meaning "of the woods".

Unofficial[]

  • Brazilian Portuguese - Jasmim Campos: [2]
    • "Jasmim" comes from the Persian Yasmin and means precisely "jasmim" (jasmine), a kind of flower known for its sweet aroma.
    • "Campos" is a common surname in Portuguese and Spanish, meaning "pessoa que habita os campos"" (person who inhabits the fields).
    • Her full name form "jasmim dos campos", adapting Juniper Woods, ("juniper of the forest", which is "junípero da floresta" in Portuguese).

Development[]

Design[]

See also: Themis Legal Academy
  • In her casual attire, she wears her hair in pigtails with knots at the end tied with great leaves. She wears a sunflower as a hairpin or on her hat doubling as an inhaler. The sunflower has a stem on the hat but not as a hairpin. She wears a light pink dress, a cream half-sweater with a yellow ribbon and a pinecone, white fingerless gloves, a white sun hat with a brown section, and brown shoes.
  • Her costume design for the school festival is almost identical to that worn by Lamiroir when she sung "The Guitar's Serenade" in Turnabout Serenade (even her friendship bracelet is almost exactly where Lamiroir's bracelet is). Oddly, neither Apollo Justice, Trucy Wright, nor Klavier Gavin make any comment on this, despite all three having met Lamiroir in said costume.

Miscellaneous[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Athena: Heh heh. Sorry, but I couldn't help reading it. You always were popular with the guys.
    Juniper: Th-that's not true! I... I was never...!
    Athena: You just didn't realize it, but it made you even more irresistible. It's been seven years, but I still remember how all the boys wanted to be near you.
    Apollo: I bet you used to get all excited when a guy handed you a love letter... and then get really bummed out when he'd say, “Could you give this to Juniper for me?”
    Athena: Agh! (How'd he know?)
    Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies. Capcom. Episode: Turnabout Academy (in English). 2013.
  2. "Nomes - Jacutem Sabão". Advogados de Primeira. Retrieved on 2022-03-21.
  3. Jay Mysterio. "PW:AA-DD at E3 - more English names confirmed" Court Records. Retrieved on 2013-06-06.
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