So far, I’ve played two Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright games, and I enjoy them very much. I do, however, have a problem with one aspect of the gameplay. The goal of a real-life defense attorney is to prove that there is a possibility that their client did not commit the crime, especially in murder cases. The criteria for finding a suspect guilty is proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they did the crime. In other words, all the defense really has to do is introduce doubt of the suspect’s guilt and an innocent verdict should result. This is just my understanding of law based on a 12th grade mock trial (high school senior-level government class), but I believe our criteria for a guilty verdict was taken from actual law.
My problem with the Ace Attorney games is that not only do you, as the defense attorney, have to prove your client’s innocence (what happened to “innocent until proven guilty” anyway?), but you also have to prove who actually committed the crime (at least you do in the 9 cases I’ve finished so far…). It may be more entertaining this way (or something), but in the interest of realism, I would like to point out (in rant form) that this is by no means a defense attorney’s job. On the contrary, it is the prosecutions job to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the suspect is guilty. In the games it is assumed the suspect is guilty and it’s your job to prove his innocence while the prosecution basically stands there and mocks you.
To finish, I want to repeat that I do very much enjoy these games and will continue to play them, but I wanted to rant about that. I do so love to rant and complain… 
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<rambling>
For those of you who don’t recognize HTML, I am done with my rant and am now going to ramble a bit. I don’t enjoy rambling as much as I do ranting, but it happens without much warning…
So, if you’re interested, here’s some detail about the mock trial I had in my senior year of high school. If you’re not interested, stop reading now because that’s all that is after this point.
So the mock trial was a murder trial. It wasn’t a real-life one, but I don’t think it was completely made up either (at least, not by our teacher). I was the bailiff and a Juror if needed. The whole trial was pretty fun. I mostly just sat around listening to each sides stories and approaches to the trial, though I did have to pay attention to the facts, just in case (please, no puns with the name “Justin”, which happens to also be my name…). When the time for Jury deliberation came, I did have to be a juror, since one of the jury members was absent (and had been for most of the trial). The teacher took us out into the hall and helped our deliberations by presenting the facts presented, the theories presented, and he really stressed the criteria needed, according to the law, to find the defendant guilty. I think there were 7-8, maybe 9 jurors, and if we couldn’t come up with a unanimous decision, we would have to declare a hung jury. We all argued back and forth for most of the period, bringing up facts, contradicting theories with proven facts, and so on. I personally didn’t feel that the prosecution had proven the defendant’s guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”, and neither did 3-4 other jurors. I felt it was likely the defendant had done it, but I was not certain, and could not give a guilty vote. I think our votes were something like 4 not guilty, 4 guilty, and 1 undecided, though I’m not sure. I know “guilty” and “not guilty” were fairly even and there was at least one person undecided. We ended up not being able to agree and with neither side willing to declare the verdict to be opposite their vote, so we had a hung jury, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but I believe that was the case, so to speak.
If you were wondering, I don’t remember many details of the case, but I remember that the defendant was accused of shooting her husband in the back. I forget what the motive was, but I think one angle approached by one side or the other was self-defense. She was afraid he was going to hurt her, though a known fact was that when he was shot, he had been reaching up for something on a shelf, and that there were flowers and a card for the accused found near the body. (I believe the card was an apology, but I’m not sure. I remember that the wording of the card was a little obscure and vague, but that most people in the “courtroom” (our classroom) believed it to be a positive message towards the accused.)
I would like to go on, but I’m about out of material, and it’s 2:06 in the morning. I’m tired, and hungry, and I have to wake up early tomorrow to write an English paper that really should have been done long before now. Darn you KOTOR! (and to a lesser degree, Phoenix Wright and Scott Pilgrim…(and to an even lesser, though still significant degree, my unwillingness to actually work on the assignment…))
btw, i sometimes hate twitter’s 140 character limit, though i do understand it, and I also love the fact that since this is a personal blog, I am under no obligation to be absolutely perfect gramatically, though i usually am try to be anyway. I can’t stand having bad grammar if I catch it. I don’t have to capitalize “I” if i get lazy, i can use contractions (seriously? no contractions in formal papers?! WTF?!), i can use shorthand and/or im/text language, i can choose to exteeeend certain parts of words or intentionally mis-spell them in order to get across a ceerrtain pronunciation and sometimes a little meaning beyond the text itself, and…I can use emoticons! 
Wow, that was a long first *personal* blog post. I say *personal* because all my past blog posts were assignments for CIT 112.
Night, all you 3 people who will see this!
