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Her grandfather sits in his old, cracked, recliner, watching a procedural with cracked audio due to the storm outside. He does this rather often, and the rhythm to which he rocks in his seat is in sync with the backbeats of the grandfather clock that sits in the corner of the room.
“Hey gramps,” Constance says, cracking open a soda can and standing at the threshold that separates the living room from the kitchen. “More court shows?”
“Hmph. More damn show than they’ll ever be court.”
“What do you mean?”
He hits the mute button on the remote and pats the arm of the recliner, where she takes a seat. “I think it’s time I tell you about what your gramps did before he decided to spend the rest of his life wasting away at home,” he says, throwing in a self-deprecating laugh that devolves into a cough.
Constance has always thought her grandfather a mystery— a locked box of secrets protected by conveniently timed swigs of beer and the masterful ability to change the subject— so she’s a bit surprised, to say the least.
“R-Really?”
His eyes glaze over, his gaze still fixed on the television as he clears his throat. “I was a bailiff. I saw a lot of crazy shit, but none of it was like this, I’ll tell you that.”
“Then… what was it like?”
He scoffs. “What, you want me to say I saw a parrot as a witness?” he asks, as if such a notion is impossible.
It probably is.
Taking a pensive breath and smoothing a hand over her hair, he continues, “Listen, Connie, the courtroom… it’s not some place where prosecutors and defense attorneys battle it out for truth, or justice, or a thousand bucks. The courtroom is where people get traumatized by the same questions over and over, innocents get put behind bars, and lives are ruined.”
She can’t help but steal a glance at the photo on the mantel, one of a young couple— a beautiful woman in a pristine white dress and a comparatively haggard man with a crooked smile and love in his eyes.
“I-Is that why dad…?”
She can’t bring herself to finish answering the question.
“I won’t say I did a perfect job raising him,” he says sadly— resigned, even— taking another sip of his drink that’s sweating onto the table. “I let him get away with too much. But what happened with him and your mom… that was an accident, Connie. And he wasn’t well. It wasn’t right, sure, but throwing him behind bars when he needed help didn’t do anything good for him, I’ll tell ya that.”
Constance doesn’t really know what to say.
“Connie, you’re his legacy. He’d be proud of you. I know I am.”
The word strikes something deep within her.
She decides she wants to be a judge.
Her grandfather nearly chokes on his collard greens. “What the fuck, Connie?”
“I wanna fix things,” she says. “I wanna hand down the proper verdicts. Even guilty people deserve a fair sentence.” A short pause. “Dad deserved one.”
“You can’t change things from the inside!” he roars, hitting the table. “All you’ll do is get sucked into the bullshit. That system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as designed.”
“Gramps, I—”
“No, Connie. You can’t fix it. I know you want to. I know you’re smart. But trust me. It’s not worth it.”
She thinks on it. He’s probably right. If things are as screwed up as they are, then one person doing good will either get chased out or stay long enough to become part of the problem.
Not exactly a legacy to be proud of.
“So… what do you think I can do?”
He huffs. “Nothing. Don’t bother. Just… find something else.”
“Themis Legal Academy.” He squints at the paper in front of him through his glasses, eyebrows drawing in. It’s undoubtedly disapproval.
“I know what you’re thinking, gramps. But I wanna do this.” She pauses. “I have to.”
“So. You’ve got your heart set on it, huh?”
She nods as her grandfather lets the acceptance letter flop onto the table. “Well, I can’t stop you. You’ve always been a tough girl.” He smiles. “You’re your mom’s daughter, too.”
She graduates with a not-bitter but not-on-speaking-terms ex-girlfriend, a job offer, and high honors.
She becomes a judge, just as planned. It’s never dull, case after fascinating case, and just like she promised, she hands down as fair a verdict as she can, no matter how long it takes. She’s moved up quickly, to the point where she makes it to the district circuit court, with her very own chambers in place of a quiet study cubicle in the local law library.
A new case crosses her desk just hours before it’s set to go to trial; apparently the judge initially assigned to it backed out.
IS-7, the file reads— State v. Master.
It looks messy, and if that weren’t bad enough, the name on the prosecutor’s line reads Manfred von Karma.
She’s read rumors about his machinations that hang over the stage of every trial: forged evidence, badgered witnesses, a lack of due process. She can’t say she’s excited to meet him.
She makes her way to the courtroom, and sure enough, when she walks into the courtroom, the dreadful, owlish man is already laying out his papers and evidence carefully. Across from him, at the other bench, stand two hatted men, organizing their evidence as well, although the one with the bowler looks a little nervous.
Going through the motions, she calls the case to order, and all hell breaks loose. If the room was icy when she walked in, it’s cold enough now as the counsels volley back and forth with enough chill to freeze over hell itself.
Throughout her education, she’s been taught to view both sides as equal, but something in her gut trusts the determination with which Gregory Edgeworth objects to every single one of the prosecution’s assertions. On the other hand, something about von Karma isn’t sitting right with her.
She tries to be as objective as possible, but by the end of the day, she’s beat. She showers, cracks open a soda, and sits on the couch as her grandfather rocks in his chair in silence.
She goes in for day two of the trial.
Then day three.
Then day four.
Her grandfather dies on day 181.
Before she knows it, it’s day 364, and Master confesses, his voice hollow and eyes sunken.
Soul broken.
Deep down, Constance knows it’s not true, especially not once Edgeworth presents evidence that von Karma coerced testimony through the interrogator put on the case, but the evidence all points to the man at the witness stand, who looks at her, fully accepting his fate.
Her gavel hits the sound block as the word “Guilty” passes her lips.
She gets home and cries.
She’d filed a motion to have the Prosecutor’s Office and local precinct conduct an audit on Manfred von Karma, Rip Lacer, and evidence with which they secured their verdict— at the very least, the former could be penalized, and the latter could be dismissed.
She sees news of Gregory Edgeworth’s death on the news. He left a son.
Constance wonders if there’s anything she could’ve done. She knows that the right thing to do would’ve been to drag out the trial, to find a way to acquit Master, but there was simply no way to do it.
So, the next day, along with her case report, she files her letter of resignation.
Then, she goes downstairs to inquire about the position as a court stenographer.
After all, she can’t hurt people if she doesn’t make the decisions.
It’s easy for her— she rarely, if ever, gets put on the same case two days in a row, and just over a decade in, the three-day trial system gets implemented, and from that point forward, she never sees the same witnesses twice.
It’s easy for her to forget with all the information she has to record at once.
It’s easy for her to get home and pretend that everything is okay.
She picks up art for the first time since high school. It’s a nice way to destress.
But it’s hard to keep going.
The guilt of quitting follows her around— as does her grandfather’s voice telling her that there’s no way to make a change.
Her legacy is a blank ledger.
Fifteen years after Constance closed her chapter of passing judgement, Manfred von Karma is arrested for the murder of Gregory Edgeworth.
She finds out in a bar during happy hour, watching the local news alone as it’s interrupted by shaky footage of an old man in an ostentatious suit being led out by police in handcuffs, his cane carried by a bailiff who trails shortly behind.
Apparently, the attorney on the case is the young upstart that’s been giving the Demon Prosecutor a run for his money.
As if that weren’t enough, said Demon Prosecutor— Miles Edgeworth— was apparently exonerated through the testimony of a parrot and the use of a metal detector.
She smiles into her drink, knowing her grandfather is gaping wherever he is.
The smile on the attorney’s face— Phoenix Wright, the ticker reads along the bottom line— is one that’s rather haggard. He clearly hasn’t slept in days, but he just smiles as he walks out of the courtroom with Edgeworth and a girl in purple robes.
Deep down, a part of her wonders if there’s hope for the legal system after all.
One day, out of sheer curiosity, she opens her laptop on her lunch break and types “legal jobs NOT courtroom” into the search bar.
And, to her surprise, among the hundreds of jobs that are in the courtroom despite what she thought was a masterful use of a Boolean, she sees a familiar name.
“Professor of Ethics and Judge Course Dean, Themis Legal Academy”
She scrolls through the job description, and the salary is far higher than what’s she’s making now. Sure, it seems like administration is looking for someone with a four-year degree in education, but she hopes as she impulsively fills out the application that maybe, just maybe, she can get an interview.
Two days later, she gets an email, and four days after that, she sits in front of a panel of professors and administrators, some familiar, some not. One of them is a stony-faced man that Constance clearly remembers as an underclassman she passed in the hallways no more than a few times, a couple others smile at her with familiarity, and the rest seem to not be too fond of the nervous, taut smile on her face.
She answers the standard questions with the standard answers she’s rehearsed time and time again, until she’s asked, “So, tell us what you’d be bringing to the table that other candidates might not be able to.”
It’s a tough question to answer honestly, but she takes a deep breath. “I bring my mistakes. I won’t pretend I was a perfect judge. I passed a lot of rulings that I regret even now. But, just like my grandfather did before me, I’ve seen that the system isn’t designed to work for the people. I tried to fix it, but I’ve come to realize the only people that can fix it are the ones who haven’t been taught that they can’t yet. I bring… hope. With a healthy dose of cynicism,” she chuckles, just barely masking her own surprise at the sudden surge of confidence.
“I was a dreamer as a kid. I wanna make sure that kids who are dreamers now don’t get crushed. I wanna make sure they have the tools to succeed and actually make things better. More honest. More fair,” she says simply.
Even the people who frowned at her before smile.
Teaching, she finds, is rather difficult.
But Jesus Christ, it’s fun.
A day doesn’t go by where Constance isn’t glad that she managed to get a job offer— sure, Themis lowballed her a bit, but it was more than fair considering that she wasn’t actually a teacher until she crammed in a licensure program the semester and summer before the new school year started.
She takes up the mantle of Art Club Advisor, and she learns that these students, even though they’re a little uptight in class, are some of the most wildly creative and astute people she’s ever known, both in and out of court.
Over the years, she hones her teaching skills, fine tunes her lectures, memorizes every ridiculous joke and exercise that’s a hit with the kids. She watches kids come out of their shells, improve on what they couldn’t understand before, and grow into young adults ready to take the world on by its horns.
In 2019, Jeff Master is proven innocent.
She covers it in class, unafraid to hide her own mistakes as her students take notes on how to not make the same errors she did.
It’s a legacy like no other.
She knows her family is proud.
“I heard Hugh on the phone with his parents talking about paying a professor for his grades. I… I don’t want to believe it, but…”
The scrap of paper she found in the hallway a few weeks ago makes all too much sense once Juniper says it, really. Aristotle, as far as she remembers, was a shrewd boy, always at the top of his class. Of course, unsavory rumors followed about how he overtook the valedictorian who was sent to rehab during finals season, but having already graduated, she hadn’t really cared. It was irrelevant.
But, just like any trial, insignificant evidence can all fall together at any time.
Time has taken its toll on Constance, so the trek to the stage to confront Aristotle about the bribery takes the wind out of her.
The end of his staff takes her life entirely.
The world blurs just a bit as she can feel him lifting her onto some sort of podium and tying her wrists. Everything in her body feels heavy, and she can’t help but wonder what will become of her.
She wonders if that legacy she spent years building, with all its triumphs and failures, will ever matter to the faces that smile as the world goes dark— to the face that smiles as her world goes dark.
Maybe her grandfather was right.
Maybe it wasn’t worth it at all.