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Comment by Jommi | Hacker News Reader

Its a Nintendo DS Game that has grown a cult following ever since the first game was released. A visual novel style game.

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Actually the original series is from Game Boy Advance, but the GBA games were never released outside of Japan.

Nintendo DS ports were the first one releases in the rest of the world.

BTW, I am a great fan of the series, really recommend it.

Did you know that it's actually a rather pointed parody/criticism of the Japanese justice system? I had no idea myself! Perhaps I was the only one who didn't know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...

The conviction rate in Japan is over 99% -- going to "trial" is essentially the same as being found guilty.

The prosecuting attorneys have a lot of discretion over what is prosecuted, and are effectively de facto judges. They may decide to simply not prosecute a case if they feel "character, age, environment, gravity of the offense, circumstances or situation after the offense" makes it unnecessary.

So it's easy to imagine there might be some with quite an ego like Edgeworth or Von Karma -- and a protagonist like our heroic defense attorney would be quite the unusual attorney, indeed! I loved the games even without knowing any of that, but that really makes them all the more poignant and funny for me.

I recently started playing it on the Switch, and my first thought was that I hope the Japanese court system isn't really like this. It makes me appreciate the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" in the US. Ace Attorney feels much more "I don't like you, so I'm going to assume you're guilty unless you have absolute proof that you're not".

Justice systems are complicated. From what I've read, it's true that the japanese court system indeed gives prosecutors more leeway and the trial is more of a formality. The conviction rate of 99% (vs 70-95% in the us, depending how you count) speaks to this.

However, that's not all there is to it. You're still innocent until proven guilty in Japan.

There's also probably more in common with the japanese justice system and the US system than different. In practice, the majority of cases in both don't go to trial. In japan, the prosecution will just not prosecute any case they don't think they'll win (and have broad leeway to do so). This results in a 99% conviction rate because, well, there's no reason they can't just drop any case without rock solid evidence. Even in cases where they're confident the suspect is guilty, but they don't think they have enough evidence, they may opt to just drop the case.

In the US, similarly, most cases don't go to trial. The vast majority are also ended under prosecutor discretion, via plea bargains. Both in the US and Japan, most cases skip the proper court system due to the prosecution having power to do so. It's just in Japan, the prosecution also has power to drop the case, while in the US the prosecution can only skip the courts if they get a plea deal, but not if the suspect keeps pleading not-guilty.

Japan has laws requiring evidence in addition to a confession due to understanding that police sometimes force confessions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...)

In america it's routine for people to be convicted on nothing other than a suspect agreeing to a plea deal even though they didn't do it. "You can get 1 year in jail and get back to your family if you take the plea, or you can risk 30 years in jail if you keep saying not-guilty" isn't at all unusual in the US system, especially since a cop's word is often enough for a guilty sentence.

I'd be happy to be wrong on any of he above details if anyone has separate experience, understanding, or sources.

All that being said, I'd much much rather be arrested in Japan than in the US.

I wonder if this is partly an extension of what you might call "confirmation culture", which could be described as a way of avoiding disgrace/humiliation.

For instance, when applying for a promotion, I've heard that in Japanese culture it is common to get pre-approval from various parties beforehand so that it is ensured before a formal/public application is made; this way, nobody is disgraced by being turned down. Not sure how true that is. But it could apply to the justice system in a similar way; having a high conviction rate means the justice system is effective, whereas trying someone and not convicting them might make the justice system look bad.

What is the right conviction rate?

Your article says that a study of every legal case since WWII found that it was due to prosecutors not trying uncertain cases, which would seem to be a good thing for the innocent.

There are criticisms about allegedly forced confessions and such, but that seems to be unrelated to the conviction rate itself.

I didn't criticize the Japanese justice system.

I said the game was a criticism/parody of the Japanese justice system.

I don't have an opinion on the Japanese justice system. I simply do not know enough about it.

(Admittedly, I did say it was easy to imagine that some prosecutors might have a bit of a "god" complex...)

Fair enough, but that criticism of the conviction rate always stuck out to me--and this is by no means the first time I've heard it repeated--simply because it's one of those cases where there is no right answer.

Sounds like the Cardassian justice system in Star Trek Deep Space 9.

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