People being Convicted by Public Opinion in Visual Novels.
- Ace Attorney:
- The series displays this a few times for the people inside the courtroom who are convinced that the defendant or a particular witness is truly guilty, despite what the evidence or lack of evidence shows. The judge is also easily swayed by the opinions of the prosecution and is sometimes quick to hand down a guilty verdict due to said opinions.
- It applies to Phoenix's childhood, where he is accused of stealing lunch money from his fellow classmate, Miles Edgeworth. All the children point their fingers at Phoenix as the thief and even the teacher is convinced that Phoenix is guilty, despite no direct evidence. Only Edgeworth and Larry Butz stand up for Phoenix and convince the whole class that he is not the guilty party. It was Larry Butz.
- In the first game, the first few times Phoenix meets Detective Gumshoe, he is recognized as the lawyer who defended a murderer- despite the real killer confessing on the stand both times. Phoenix has to keep correcting him and the fact that Gumshoe forgets details often doesn't help matters. Gumshoe, at least, does eventually warm up to him.
- In the bonus case of the first game, "Rise from the Ashes", a chief prosecutor is accused of murdering a detective. Miles Edgeworth, who was also accused of murder 2 months prior and declared innocent of the incident, steps up to be the prosecutor of the case. The people in the gallery are against Edgeworth because they still remember him as the "demon prosecutor" whose most famous case was alleged to be won by evidence forgery. They're right that the decisive evidence in SL-9 was forged and that Edgeworth was very amoral (though he never crossed the line into outright illegality) before Phoenix got to him, but Edgeworth genuinely didn't know that the evidence presented to him had been faked by the police. After Damon Gant, the Big Bad in the current case and the SL-9 case has a Villainous Breakdown and gives a Motive Rant, Edgeworth realizes that he could very easily fall down the same slope, so he takes a break from his job to find out what it truly means to be a lawyer. By the time Edgeworth returns and learns his lesson, the public views him more favorably.
- In the second game, this is the reason Matt Engarde can't get more than a Pyrrhic Victory; even if he is declared Not Guilty, the gallery is convinced he did it to the point of shouting abuse at Phoenix for defending him. Matt is guilty, but Phoenix was coerced into being his defense.
- Played straight in Apollo Justice where Phoenix meets Zak seven years after he escaped from his trial. Phoenix tells him that the public firmly believes that his partner, Valant, helped him escape during the trial and they also believe that he was the one who killed Magnifi, even though there's no evidence to support their claims. To put everything to rest and let the public believe what it wants, Zak writes a confession note saying that he "killed" Magnifi, even though Magnifi actually killed himself. This is all before days after Zak is legally declared dead after seven years since his vanishing act.
- Because of the "guilty until proven innocent" and "evidence is everything" philosophy of the trial system, Kristoph Gavin, the Big Bad of Apollo Justice, can't be convicted because there's no evidence directly pointing at them. However, Phoenix has installed the Juror System, where outside observers of the trial will hand down the verdict based on what they had seen in the trial itself. The system was installed because of the public dissatisfaction of the current legal system. Apollo's struggle and arguments had soundly convinced the jury panel, and they declared Kristoph guilty, despite the lack of direct evidence.
- In "The Magical Turnabout", everyone thinks Trucy is a murderer even before the trial has started thanks to exaggerations and slander in the media and the social networks. Trucy-haters even ask for her death penalty at full volume during the trial. Never has the In-Universe audience been so vocal about giving the pointer finger to a defendant. Justified in that Roger Retinz, a major media mogul called the Ratings Rajah, is doing his all to make Trucy look bad in the eyes of the public, partly because he has a grudge against the Gramarye family, of which Trucy is the only known survivor, and because Mr. Reus is the real murderer and wants Trucy to go down for the killing.
- In The Great Ace Attorney: Much like Miles Edgeworth after him, Barok van Zieks has trouble getting an attorney when framed for murder because of his reputation, but in Barok's case, it's because he's rumored to be a Serial Killer who kills every defendant who wins a case against him, so people think the latest murder is just the one that got him caught. He is innocent of all the deaths; Stronghart was specifically setting it up so that it looked like Barok had some kind of curse that got defendants killed, something that comes out during the trial.
- Double Homework:
- The protagonist is termed a "mass murderer" for his role in the Barbarossa incident multiple times by the press, despite a lack of evidence of any crime on his part. For all anybody knows, it was completely out of his control.
- Invoked by Rachel near the end of the game if the player chooses her romantic path. When the protagonist confesses his (and Tamara's) role in the avalanche to her, she says that it could've happened regardless, but that he should continue to keep it quiet, as the Olympic Committee would bow to public pressure and bar him from any Olympic events if the truth were to get out.
