Artistic License

Apollo Justice's final case has everything to do with Phoenix losing his attorney's badge seven years ago for presenting forged evidence in court. In quite possibly the most complicated and extravagant case ever (and such complication usually leads to a few plotholes I won't delve into), Phoenix puts the correct culprit behind bars and introduces a brand new court system, the MASON system (basically jurors decide if one is guilty or not), forever changing the way verdicts are handed down. Phoenix knew that the real culprit could still escape the law with the current court system. In Phoenix's words, the current court system wasn't enough.

The last case involves three different cases that are all connected to each other. They are all linked by one person: Kristoph Gavin, Apollo's old mentor as well as Phoenix's lawyer and supposed friend.

the cases

The three cases involved include the unfinished case of Zak Gramarye, the case of Phoenix and Shadi Smith and a new one, a case that involved the artist that made the forged piece of evidence seven years ago. Phoenix had spent seven years looking for the links and collecting evidence from the three cases, to clear his name and to establish a new court system, one that does not rely on evidence so much. By the time of the third case, Phoenix already had a very good idea of who was behind everything, and why he was behind everything, but unfortunately, lacked decisive evidence. After all, he knew who he was after, and that person is very good at hiding evidence. It's obvious that despite losing his attorney's badge, the lawyer inside of Phoenix refuses to disappear, and he will do all he can to make sure criminals are given their proper punishments.

The third and final case involves the death of a hermit artist, Drew Misham, who died from poison. The only suspect is his own daughter, Vera Misham. The two Mishams never stepped outside their studio, ever. So it was a surprise that they actually let someone inside on the day of the crime. The only other person present at the time was a reporter that they let in for an interview, but the reporter was serving as a witness.

7 years ago

What happened was that seven years ago, Kristoph had gotten Vera (the real forger) to make the forged piece of evidence (the one that took Phoenix down). Kristoph is a lawyer, so he knew the best way to cover his tracks was if everyone connected to the case was dead. Who keeps secrets better than a dead person? That meant Vera must die, similar to how Kristoph felt the need to kill Zak. He had sent her a stamp where the back was covered with poison, hoping Vera will write back to him using that stamp, hoping she will lick the stamp to apply it on the envelope. However, Vera liked the stamp so much (it had a picture of the Gramarye magicians on it), she kept it and used a regular stamp.

No worries. To further cover his tarcks, he also sent Vera poisonous nail polish. He noticed that Vera bit her lips when she's nervous, so he told her that if she ever needs to leave her home to venture outside, she should put on this lucky nail polish. Vera felt the nail polish was magical. Drew was worried about his daughter and finally, after seven years, wrote to Kristoph to ask him to please release Vera from his "spell"; however, Drew used the Gramarye stamp, and ended up dying.

In the last trial, Phoenix helps Apollo out as much as he can by providing much evidence for him, the evidence he spent years finding and collecting. Even the prosecutor, who was Kristoph's own brother, ended up rooting for Apollo to win the case. Kristoph, who was so sure he wiped out any decisive evidence against him, was horrified to realize that decisive evidence matters not in this case -- this is the jury system, Phoenix's MASON system! The jury decides Vera is innocent and Kristoph is once again outraged. To make it worse, Apollo points out that the jury system was all Phoenix's idea, which makes Kristoph madder still. Phoenix has solved and resolved all the connecting cases of the past seven years; at last, it is complete!