Jurist System

The Jurist System is a trial system intended to revive the jury trials that were conducted prior to 2012. Only one trial is known to have used the system to date, and it seems to have been discontinued.

Test trial

Main article: Turnabout Succession

Having made their selection, a juror makes to confirm their verdict for Vera Misham's trial.

The trial featured six jurors who watched the trial from a separate room through closed-circuit video camera. The judge moderated the proceedings, and he could end the trial in a guilty verdict through penalties on the defense attorney. However, once the judge decided to end the trial (and not in the aforementioned manner), the responsibility of the final verdict fell on the jury. A unanimous verdict was required to end the trial for good; otherwise, a mistrial would be declared due to a hung jury and the trial would restart.

In real life

The old bench trial system is based on Japan's actual judicial system that was in use from 1943 to 2009. The Jurist System's inclusion in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was due to Japan reestablishing jury trials with a 2004 ruling that officially changed the system in May of 2009. The first jury trial since the 1940s took place in August of 2009. Nevertheless, this anachronism that the Ace Attorney games now contain is still apparent.^{[citation needed]}

In the localized versions of the games, the setting is in Los Angeles, California. However, the United States has been using trials by jury since, at the latest, December of 1791, when the Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights was enacted.

Terminology confusion

The use of the term "Jurist System" and the word "jurist" in the context of the events of Turnabout Succession is incorrect. The correct term for a member of a jury is "juror"; a "jurist" is an expert in the law, which is ironic considering the whole point of the "Jurist System".