Prosecutor's office

Prosecutor's office
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Organization type	Law enforcement
Headquarters	Prosecutor's Building
Leader	Bansai Ichiyanagi (Some point between 2007 and 2015) Lana Skye (2015 - 2017)
Affiliated groups	Criminal Affairs Department Police department
Status	Active

Shi-Long Lang

The whole lot of you can't be trusted. "A prosecutor who never lost in 40 years"? "Every defendant must be found guilty"? Fueled by those ideas, is it any wonder that courts produce nothing but falsities and lies!?

— The Kidnapped Turnabout

The Los Angeles prosecutor's office is the controlling body for the city's prosecutors. This prosecutor's office is known for having several prodigies, such as Miles Edgeworth, Franziska von Karma and Klavier Gavin, of whom the former two have gained national and even international attention. Miles Edgeworth in particular was dubbed the top prosecutor in the United States at one time. The prosecutor's office resides in the aptly named Prosecutor's Building.

Role in law enforcement

The prosecutor's office maintains a close, albeit strained, partnership with the Criminal Affairs Department and police department. While a prosecutor can be placed in charge of a crime scene investigation, police officers and criminal affairs detectives tend to do the actual field work of collecting evidence. The prosecutor will occasionally participate in the actual collection of evidence, notably in the murders of Byrne Faraday and Mack Rell, as well as the Buddy Faith murder case. However, the prosecutor's main job is in having a suspect arrested for the investigated crime, building a case against said suspect using the collected evidence, and then presenting the case against the defendant in their subsequent trial. The prosecutor is also responsible for maintaining the soundness of their case against opposition from either the defendant or a defense attorney representing them. As representatives of the state in criminal trials, prosecutors have a responsibility to the state to ensure that criminals are met with due punishment for their crimes.

Reputation

The prosecutor's office has developed a largely negative reputation over the last fifty years due to various allegations of corruption. Manfred von Karma, who started a legendary career with a perfect win record in that began in 1976, was one particular target of such allegations, with rumors of back-alley deals, forged evidence and rigged witness testimonies. His student, Miles Edgeworth, described the man as willing to do "anything" for a guilty verdict. However, no solid proof of these allegations existed, partly because of the great influence and connections that von Karma wielded in the justice system due to his prestige. Due to this, von Karma gained only praise within the prosecutor's office, earning him numerous "King of Prosecutors" awards over the years.

All this changed in 2001, when defense attorney Gregory Edgeworth managed to prove the questionable nature of some of von Karma's evidence. The prosecutor received the only penalty in his long career for this, and he later opportunistically murdered Edgeworth in what would come to be known as the DL-6 Incident. Von Karma then adopted Edgeworth's son Miles and raised both him and his own daughter Franziska to become ruthless prosecutors like him. Due to von Karma's training, Miles Edgeworth became just as ruthless, valuing a "perfect trial" far more than finding out the truth, and the reputation of the prosecutor's office continued to fall.

The aftermath of the SL-9 Incident resulted in major changes in leadership, putting Damon Gant in the police chief's seat and making Lana Skye the Chief Prosecutor, as well as demoting one detective and firing another. This caused a rift between the criminal affairs department and the prosecutor's office due to lingering questions surrounding the incident and renewed rumors of corruption among the prosecutors. The case would not be put to rest until two years later.

Von Karma's murder of Gregory Edgeworth, however, was not discovered until 15 years later, when defense attorney Phoenix Wright figured out what had happened. The legendary prosecutor was arrested and executed for his crimes, no doubt harming the prosecutor's office reputation further. However, the incident did lead to Miles Edgeworth re-evaluating his role as a prosecutor so that instead of perfection, he instead pursued the truth. Although his subsequent actions (including implicating Damon Gant as the true culprit of the last murder in the SL-9 Incident and bringing down an international smuggling ring) provide hope that the office's reputation can be restored, the criminal actions of other prosecutors may hinder this.

Leadership structure and possibilities

The leadership structure of the prosecutor's office largely mirrors that of the Japanese judicial system. In general, a prosecutor can be promoted to "High Prosecutor", which comes with some benefits such as being better informed about the inner workings of the judicial system and certain semi-classified cases. Above that rank, there are two positions called "Chief Prosecutor". It is also possible to switch between a prosecutor job and another job within the judicial system, and carry over status as such. For example, Diego Armando switched from defense to prosecution and immediately carried over his somewhat legendary reputation, while Lana Skye was transferred from a distinguished detective job to the Chief Prosecutor's seat.