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The Jurist System is a trial system intended to revive the jury trials that were conducted at some point in the past before 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
Jurist6

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 introducing the lay judge system after a 2004 ruling that would later officially change the system in May of 2009. The lay judge system differs from the "Jurist" system presented in the game, in that citizens selected to participate in the system share the bench with a judge and have the power to ask questions of the witnesses in attendance. In addition, lay judges are also involved in sentencing deliberations. The first lay judge trial took place in August of 2009, and was the first trial of the sort since the abandonment of the Taishō jury system in 1943 that included participation from members of the public in court proceedings. 

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 least 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"; the term "jurist" can refer to a judge or an expert in the law, the latter of which is ironic considering the whole point of the "Jurist System" was to have common people decide verdicts.

References

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