Phoenix next asks Maya to dig around for data on the victim, Gregory Edgeworth. She finds it in the file, along with a thumbnail photo of Edgeworth’s stern, horn rims-clad father. That man does not look like he would approve of fuchsia suits or lacy cravats. Phoenix reads that he was 35, which would make him 50 if he were alive today, which has no bearing on anything. “He had lost that day’s case in court, and got in the elevator with his son, Miles.” Here, the music stops as Maya catches up with the rest of us, and even Phoenix goes, “Miles Edgeworth, of course, stupid.” We see Mr. Edgeworth’s body again as Phoenix continues, “From the angle of the bullet and other evidence, it could not have been a suicide…” Well, that, and the fact that shooting himself in a trapped elevator with his young son would have won him the World’s Worst Father award in perpetuity. The murder weapon, which had been fired twice, was found in the elevator, and sure enough, in the photo, there’s another bullet hole in the glass pane in the door. “Where have I heard that before?” Phoenix blue-fonts. Nowhere, because the murder weapon in this case was fired three times, as you know! Keep it together, Wright! Of course, he decides that I’m wrong and that it sounds just like his current case. God dammit.
Finally, Phoenix would like to see any available data on the suspect. “Hmm…” Maya says, “that would be the guy that my mom got arrested.” Just so we don’t forget that particularly stupid detail. Thanks, Maya. Anyway, she finds a file on the suspect, a clerk of the court named Yanni Yogi. Though we’ve already established they can’t see this awesome photo featuring Little Miles’s dapper ensemble, Maya figures he must have been the third person in the elevator. “Well, he had to have done it!” Maya shouts. You’d think so, but Phoenix keeps reading, “But…he was found innocent. Thanks to his defense lawyer, Robert Hammond.” Yes, yes, the victim. Thanks again, Maya.
Let’s take a short break from this riveting exposition and go back to what Maya helpfully pointed out: Yanni Yogi was the man implicated by her spirit medium mother. Back in the Mia Fey case, you’ll recall that Maya summed up the downfall of her mother, who was asked to channel the victim and make him look like he was in drag. She said then, “The police were running out of leads, and they were getting desperate.” And yet the man named by the deceased, apparently, was the only other person in the fucking elevator besides the victim’s nine-year-old son. What fucking leads did they even need? And they hired a spirit medium, to their embarrassment and her ruin, just to tell them it was the most obvious suspect? And, judging by their methods today, why wasn’t he arrested within five fucking minutes of their discovery? Just…what the fuck?
As for why Yanni Yogi was acquitted, Phoenix reads further, “The suspect, Mr. Yogi, was oxygen deprived…so much so he had brain damage. He lost all memory of being in the elevator. After he was declared innocent, he disappeared.” Maya wonders where on Earth this brain-damaged man could be, like they don’t already know. Phoenix thinks, “He may be closer than we think…” Really, you don’t say!
“I guess I know generally what happened in DL-6 now,” Phoenix tells Maya. “I still don’t know what sort of impact the whole thing had on Edgeworth…” After all, he wasn’t down here trying to get leads on his case–he was looking for juicy Edgeworth gossip so he could stop being such an insensitive ignoramus of a boyfriend. Maya says they shouldn’t take the whole file since it’s too big, and the court record wouldn’t like having it jammed in there like that. So they just take the cliff notes version for the court record and get out of there. “Now, all that’s left is the trial tomorrow…” Phoenix says over a black screen. “I wonder how ‘Dad’ will do testifying in court…” Call me crazy, but I bet it’s gonna go great.
The next day, the judge brings the court into session and Phoenix announces that he’s ready to defend his man. Von Karma, on the other hand, just frowns, grips his sleeve in agitation, and goes “…” a couple times until the judge assumes he too is ready. “Mr. von Karma, your opening statement,” the judge asks. But von Karma is still pouting from having his perfect trial ruined yesterday, so all the judge gets is a couple more strings of ellipses. “Er…very well, no opening statements so…” the judge begins, but is interrupted by von Karma shouting “Objection!” like Satan at a monster truck rally. “Not so fast, Judge!” he says. “I was taking a meaningful pause before speaking!” Is that what we’re calling pouting now? “A prediction!” he declares, and then announces with a snap of his fingers, “Today’s trial will end three minutes from now!”
Since the peanut gallery is buzzing away at this, the judge bangs the shit out of his gavel–hee–and asks, “Mr. von Karma! What is the meaning of your statement just now!?” But obviously, he refuses to clarify, and just says again the trial will be over in three minutes. “We have no time to waste!” he yells in the poor judge’s face. “I’ll call my witness now!” The judge is so overwhelmed at this point that he doesn’t even ask where this witness was yesterday, and lets von Karma bullrush onward. “I call my witness…my decisive witness to the stand!” Phoenix merely fingers his chin and thinks that it’s the “mysterious boat shop owner.” No, it’s fucking April May.
When Grandpa shows up on the stand, obviously he is back to swaying back and forth, pretending to be addled. It’s worth pointing out now that he goes through his repulsive, and tediously long, snot bubble pop schtick nearly every time he is asked a question. Even when repeating back options Phoenix previously heard in cross-examination, he still does it and fast-forwarding doesn’t speed it up. And knowing that it’s a completely fake put-on makes it so much more insufferable. Given my desire to bludgeon him to death with his own pasta machine, assuming he even fucking has one, I’m going to go ahead and declare myself a hostile recapper for this examination.
Von Karma pointedly only asks Grandpa his profession, and not his name. After “waking up,” he replies, “I, er, am the proprietor of the restaurant the ‘Wet Noodle’ at Gourd Lake.” Von Karma snaps his fingers, like “Not in my courtroom, old man,” and Grandpa quickly adds, “And I, er, also rent boats.” Von Karma confirms that the witness was in his boat shop on the night of the murder and asks him to testify, but Phoenix realizes they’re missing some important information and objects. “Wait a minute!” he yells from his pointy pose. “The witness hasn’t stated his name yet!” Oh, like it’s going to be that easy, Phoenix. Von Karma makes his kissy face at Phoenix and says that’s because he didn’t ask, and tells him, “I have predicted this trial will end in three minutes! Stop asking trivial questions and cooperate!” Phoenix looks like he might give up out of fear of von Karma’s puckered lips, but the judge sternly commands the witness to state his name. Grandpa blows snot in everyone’s face again and admits, “Mmph! Well, er…I’m not really sure, ayup.” And then he tries to look as senile as possible as he blames his memory for his missing identity. Von Karma cuts in, “Your honor… The witness does not remember anything beyond the last several years… Ergo, he cannot recall his own name.” Oh, well how fucking convenient! Von Karma is even sure to explicitly state that he can testify about the murder because that was three days ago. How grand for everyone! The judge just goes, “Derp, I see no problem with this,” and allows it.
If Phoenix were an even remotely competent attorney, and not basically the Tim Tebow of the law profession, he would be raising about a hundred objections to someone with memory problems serving as a witness against his client, and screaming for a mistrial. Instead, he remains perfectly silent and hears out Grandpa’s testimony. It’s a good thing that Grandpa will end up being a shitty witness because he’s a lying asshole, and not because his brain is applesauce. At least Phoenix can handle that.
Just imagine me making this face through this entire testimony.
Grandpa begins his testimony by marking the time–incorrectly, again, since after midnight would have been the 25th, not the 24th–and establishing that he was in “the restaurant…where I er…rent boats, as usual.” But, he says as he stares at the light fixtures, “Then I heard a ‘bang!‘ Ayup. When I looked out the window, I saw a boat just a’floating on the lake.” Naturally, the game provides a visual of the dickboat in question. “Then I heard another ‘bang,'” he adds, as the gun in question fires at the camera, in the style of a terrible dramatic reenactment on Investigation Discovery. “Just about then the boat comes back to shore, and a man walks by my window,” he finishes. Of course, this is the one piece of information that wasn’t from prior testimony, but we don’t get to see a flashback still of it, because that would be helpful, and also because there isn’t one, since Grandpa is a lying son of a bitch.
The judge is ready to allow Phoenix his sad attempt at cross-examination, but von Karma objects and tells the judge, smiling evilly, “There is nothing to question in my witness’s testimony! Ergo, no need for cross-examination!” This tactic comes across as bullying the judge and Phoenix again, but is actually kind of sad and desperate. He’s really so afraid of what Phoenix will ask that he’s trying to avoid it entirely? “Besides,” von Karma adds, “there are only 10 seconds left before our three minutes are up!” He snaps his fingers and demands a verdict from the judge, like that’s going to fly, even with a judge as spineless as this one. The judge defers to Phoenix, who shouts, “What are you saying!? Of course I’ll cross-examine the witness!”
He’s about to go Super Saiyan!
At this, von Karma completely loses it. He pounds his bench and goes, “Raaaaaaaaaaaaargh!” as his head lolls back and his tongue wags out of his mouth. He might be having a stroke. The judge looks like he’s about to call an ambulance, but then von Karma, back to “normal,” simply states, “Three minutes just passed.” Did he have a bet with another prosecutor that he could finish this trial in three minutes? Whatever the reason, the judge is unsympathetic, and tells him, “I see. Well then, let’s just take our time.” Ha! Score one for the judge. It’s still Judge 1, Lawyers 978,247,633, but let’s let him enjoy it. He tells Phoenix to get on with the cross, already.
Hating every goddamn minute of it, I press everything Grandpa says, in case he starts talking about wearing an onion on his belt or nickels that had pictures of bumblebees on them. When he reaches the statement about being in his “restaurant” that night, Phoenix asks if he has anyone who can verify that statement. “…Well, I guess Polly could,” Grandpa replies. The judge is curious why Phoenix doesn’t think this is good enough, only to find out from Phoenix that Polly is a parrot. “Don’t be so hard on the girl, Keithy-boy!” Grandpa scolds. “Keith…?” the judge asks. This is all getting out of hand, so von Karma objects, just to keep the judge from being sucked into Grandpa’s made-up family history. He says, “The prosecution concedes that we cannot prove the witness was in the shop. Witness…please continue.” Totally with von Karma on this one.
The rest of Phoenix’s pressing is even more pointless, until Phoenix reaches the final statement about the man walking by Grandpa’s window. Phoenix wants to know if he could see the man’s face, as if he’s going to like the answer to that question, because Grandpa wouldn’t be here if it weren’t “That there young’un in the lace necktie.” But he’s asked it, so let’s just deal with the consequences. “Well, the fog was pretty darn thick, but he was right there in front of me,” Grandpa says. “I saw him.” The judge asks him to add this to his testimony, and von Karma smiles like a Cheshire cat, so Phoenix catches up with the rest of us in realizing that was a terrible idea.
“That man was the defendant…he was saying ‘I can’t believe he’s dead,'” Grandpa appends to his testimony. SHOCKING! All Phoenix can say to this mess he created is, “A-are you sure!?” while he drips with terror sweat. But Grandpa’s in dreamland again, so Phoenix yells until he wakes. But the second he’s awake, he shakes his fist and cries, “Dead certain, Keith!” I wish I were surprised that no one is asking how he can hear these questions while he’s “asleep.”
Fuck you.
Just to drive the knife in deeper, von Karma asks, “Witness! Are you sure that the person you saw was Miles Edgeworth!?” And Grandpa goes, “It was him! That Edgeworth boy!” This statement should raise all kinds of red flags for Phoenix, and for Edgeworth too, really, but he doesn’t react to this because Grandpa topples off the stand from the fervor of his testimony. No one moves to help him or anything, but they do all stare for a few seconds. After the judge has recovered, he says, “This…sounds like decisive evidence indeed. I see no room for doubt.” Phoenix thinks to himself, “von Karma… He lured me into cross-examining so he could set me up for a fall!” This is completely stupid–it’s not like Grandpa’s testimony is worth double guilt just because Phoenix is the one who asked the question. Von Karma could have just had Grandpa testify off the bat that he saw Edgeworth’s face. Yet again, the game is using cheap parlor tricks like the scary “Oh shit” music and random discovery of testimony to make von Karma look more formidable than he is. Perpetuating this myth further, Von Karma goes, “Tsk, tsk, tsk…” at him too, though without the finger wag or air smooches, as appropriate as they would be here.
Maya is worried because, as she tells Nick, “Everyone in the courtroom is glaring at us!” Not only might Edgeworth be declared guilty and Nick be propelled into being Larry’s codependent again, but they might get bludgeoned to death by an angry mob. Phoenix can do nothing but object. “Your Honor!” he cries, memories of Edgeworth’s sweet penis so horribly faint at this point. “We proved in yesterday’s court that it could not have been Edgeworth who fired that gun!” Unfortunately for Phoenix, von Karma has had a day to think about that problem. He objects, asking, “Mr. Wright. Are you referring to the fingerprints from Edgeworth’s right hand found on the gun, and the photograph showing a man firing with his left hand…?” Of course that’s what he means, but, von Karma says, “That is easily explainable! He could have wiped his prints after he fired!” The prosecutor maintains that everything Grandpa said is true, regardless of silly things like “evidence” from the first day in court and the fact that Grandpa is totally fucking lying anyway.