Miscarriages of Justice where an innocent person is falsely convicted of a crime in Literature.
- In Alguien debe morer by José-Luis Martin Vigil, Alipio Zadona is sentenced to die for murdering Lucas Paz, who died while he was attempting to blackmail Judge José Reyes. On the day of his execution, although Reyes is unable to confess, the niece of the true murderer confesses her aunt's guilt.
- Atonement: Robbie Turner is wrongly accused of rape and gets sent to prison and later the army for a crime he didn't commit. The rude letter he wrote Cecilia and Briony's testimony just implicates him even further, as does the fact that he's the gardener's son - and all other suspects are from the upper class. The actual rapist gets away with it.
- In Kevin J. Anderson's Blindfold, a loading dock worker is falsely accused of murdering his boss. Subverted in that the accusation came not from a trial, but from a mind scan by a young Truthsayer, who is implicitly trusted to always be right. When the mistake is realized, the head Truthsayer realizes they can't admit it to the people, as their entire justice system will crumble. Interestingly, the guy who actually ordered the murder is just as shocked as anyone else by the verdict, even though his manipulations with the Veritas drug caused the mistake. In the end, the truth is revealed, causing the Truthsayers to be disbanded and the society to return to a more traditional justice system.
- Caleb Williams is all about this trope. The titular hero is an innocent man everyone believes is guilty, while his employer is a guilty person everyone believes to be innocent.
- The Confession has this be a conga-line of reasons for Donté Drumm getting convicted of Nicole's murder. He gets arrested based on an anonymous call that places him at her last seen location — a call placed by the girl's jealous boyfriend; gets bullied into confessing to the crime after being held for questioning for over 15 hours; his trial has him be sentenced to death based on no factual evidence beyond a video of the (forced) confession, by a judge who was sleeping with the trial's prosecutor. He eventually gets executed, despite clear evidence being presented on TV that Travis Boyette is the real murderer.
- The Count of Monte Cristo — Edmond Dantes is framed for treason and sent to the Chateau d'If without a trial by the cousin of the woman he loved, Mercedes, who wanted her for himself, with the help of a corrupt prosecutor.
- Daddy's Little Girl:
- Rob Westerfield - convicted for the murder of his girlfriend Andrea Cavanaugh - claims to be a victim of this and a lot of other people in Oldham are inclined to believe him, especially when handyman Will Nebels publicly claims he saw Paulie Stroebel go into the garage hideout the night Andrea was killed. Andrea's sister Ellie refuses to believe it. It turns out that not only is Rob guilty as all hell, he should be in prison for several other crimes too; Nebels was paid off by Rob's lawyer and family to say he saw Pulie at the hideout.
- Ellie discovers that Amy 'Phil' Rayburn's boyfriend was convicted of murdering her but that Rob was actually the real culprit; although her boyfriend could be jealous, Phil's family always had doubts he could seriously harm her, but no one could identify any other plausible suspects. With Ellie's help, he's formally exonerated in the end.
- Liam in The Fey and the Fallen is sent to prison twice, despite being completely innocent. He is a young, Catholic Irishman during the The Troubles who was arrested as a rioter twice by British security sent to quash the rabble-rousers. After the second time, he becomes radicalized and joins the IRA.
- Harry Potter was quite fond of using this to demonstrate the incompetence or impotence of the Ministry of Magic:
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, even told Dumbledore and Hagrid that he was only sending Hagrid to Azkaban because people had to see him doing something in response to attacks on Hogwarts students.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — Sirius Black was imprisoned without trial in Azkaban, accused of murdering fellow wizard Peter Pettigrew and 12 Muggles. Minister Fudge ignored the witnesses that claimed Pettigrew was alive and had framed Sirius because he believed they were more loyal to Dumbledore than to the Ministry.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — Several Death Eaters or suspected Death Eaters were imprisoned after Voldemort's fall, regardless of whether they were truly guilty. It's implied that the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Barty Crouch, Sr., wanted quick and convincing trials (or sometimes no trial at all) because he was in line for the Minister's job. He even sent his own son to Azkaban, although in that case his son actually was a Death Eater (and in the film version made no attempt to deny it).
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — The Ministry puts Harry on trial in order to keep from "inciting panic" over Harry's claim of Voldemort's return, and to weaken Dumbledore's popularity as Fudge sees him as a threat to his position. Dumbledore himself shows up to defend Harry, lampshades the ridiculousness of holding a full criminal proceeding for a simple matter of underage magic, and gets Harry acquitted in about two pages. Dolores Umbridge herself takes matters into her own hands by forcing Harry to cut his skin every time he decided to speak out against the Ministry or alert others of Voldemort's return.
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
- The Ministry has finally admitted that Voldemort has indeed returned, but they immediately revert to how they acted during the first war, with many instances of unjustifiable arrests. This includes the arrest of Stan Shunpike, who gets sent straight to Azkaban.
- Shunpike is an interesting case; in the following novel, he's revealed to be one of the Death Eaters attacking Harry above Little Whinging. His physical state indicates Imperius Curse enthrallment, though. Scrimgeour wasn't acting senselessly when he arrested Stan (though, disproportionately, yes). Who knows how long he had been cursed. Harry's main defense is that he knows Stan, but the Death Eaters have ways of making people act against their natural inclination (since, however, Stan was sent to Azkaban for boasting he knew Voldemort's secret plans in a pub — hardly behavior an Imperiused person would engage in — this may be a case of Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook).
- Continued in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where Voldemort's supporters have seized control of the Ministry in a palace coup and turn the wheels of magical justice to their own support.
- In I Heard That Song Before, Peter is charged and nearly convicted for murdering Susan Althorp and Jonathan Lansing. Shortly before the case goes to trial, the real murderer is identified and he's freed.
- Being set in Roman times, Julian has a few. One Deacon dies for asking a shop owner when "the work" will be done during a time period where the shop owner had an imperial cloak.
- Inverted in "The Lady, or the Tiger?", where the defendant truly is guilty but the king's trial system is a famous Door Roulette that will end with him either dead or married. Since his 'crime' was to date the king's daughter, either outcome is fine with the king, and the trial becomes a matter of "whether he did wrong in allowing himself to love the princess."
- In Last Sacrifice, Rose is convicted of regicide and sentenced to death, based only on circumstantial evidence. She is innocent.
- In Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Skip Reardon claims he was wrongfully convicted for the murder of his wife, Suzanne, eleven years ago and assistant prosecutor Kerry starts to wonder the same thing, digging to find out the truth. It turns out he really is innocent and he's freed in the end.
- The Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: Isabelle Flanders and Alexis Thorne were victimized in this. Both of them were framed by very bad people. Isabelle had her reputation ruined, and she was lucky that she didn't end up in prison. Alexis ended up in prison, and when she got out, she could only apply for a job as a personal shopper. The book Sweet Revenge has Isabelle strike back against bitchy Rosemary Hershey, and the book Lethal Justice has Alexis strike back against conscienceless Arden Gillespie and weepy Roland Sullivan.
- To Kill a Mockingbird sadly ends in this for Tom Robinson (thanks largely to blatant racism, as the guy pressing the charges was not very well-liked himself). Also crosses with Acquitted Too Late.
- In Kim Newman's "Tomorrow Town", a murder has been committed in a 1970s futurist community. When the investigating detectives get there, they learn that the townspeople have already imprisoned a suspect, who they insist must be the killer, citing that he never really fit into the community and that the murder weapon was found in his house. Later that night, one of the townspeople promoting this theory himself tries to kill the detectives, but accidentally manages to kill himself instead. One of the detectives then notes rather dryly that if one of the most enthusiastic proponents of "the first guy did it!" theory later tries to kill the investigating detectives, it's a fairly safe bet that there's an injustice going on.
- The opening line of The Trial by Franz Kafka describes the entire plot (quoted below). He then spends the entire story trying to find out what he's being accused of, but in keeping with the surreal nature of the rest of Kafka's work, is thwarted at every turn."Someone must have been spreading lies about Josef K., for one morning, after having committed no real crime, he was arrested."
- Under Suspicion:
- In The Sleeping Beauty Killer, Casey Carter was charged for the murder of her fiance Hunter Raleigh; she was found not guilty of murder, but was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, having only just been released at the beginning of the story. Casey is adamant that she didn't kill Hunter and wants the case featured on Under Suspicion in the hopes of clearing her name and finding the real murderer. It's uncovered that Casey's cousin Angela was Hunter's murderer, with Angela being publicly arrested. Casey hasn't yet been formally exonerated by the end of the story, but everyone - including her and Hunter's families - now knows she's innocent and she can finally move on with her life, which is what matters most to her.
- In Piece of My Heart, Darren Gunther insists that he was falsely convicted of Lou Finney's murder and that Leo, the cop who headed the investigation, greatly contributed to this by falsifying his confession and railroading him as the only suspect. In his defence, no one explicitly saw him stab Finn because it happened quickly in the middle of a brawl, Leo was the only cop in the room and hadn't turned on the recorder when Darren confessed, and DNA belonging to another man who lived in the area and has convictions for violence was recently found on the knife. It's enough that Darren has many supporters who are convinced of his innocence and are campaigning for him to be released. It's revealed he did kill Finn and orchestrated the murder of Clarissa DeSanto to try and bury evidence of this.
- The Way The Crow Flies, by Canadian author Ann-Marie MacDonald, is a fictional version of the Stephen Truscott case. A teenage boy is convicted of the murder of a child, based on circumstantial evidence.
- In Where Are the Children?, Nancy was wrongly arrested and convicted for murdering her children. Her conviction was ultimately overturned before she was executed, but this was due to a mistrial declaration based on juror misconduct; she's still regarded as the culprit and couldn't be re-tried mostly because the main witness against her had disappeared. Upon examining the case files and reports, ex-lawyer Jonathan Knowles says that while he thinks Nancy wasn't telling all she knew about her children's disappearance, it's clear Nancy wasn't mentally fit to stand trial, even her own lawyer did a merely perfunctory job of defending her, the key witness was incredibly shifty and nor were any other suspects considered.
- Canary's trial in Worm has shades of this. Despite being normal aside from her Compelling Voice, she's fitted with a restraint system used for superpowered Brutes which no doubt hurts her impression to the jury. Speaking of the voice, she's literally gagged and denied the right to speak in her own defense. When convicted, the judge uses her to set a precedent by immediately sentencing her to the Birdcage despite having no prior convictions and explicitly stating that Canary's case fell under a law that says he can't do that. (The Three Strikes Protection Act held that since the Birdcage was essentially life without hope of parole or even reduction of sentence on appeal, under normal circumstances Parahumans could only be sent there after being convicted of a severe felony on at least three separate occasions. A later chapter implies that it also protects people from being sentenced to death under the same circumstances. Canary was on trial for an accidental use of her powers... with, as presented, no actual evidence that her victim was affected by the power.)
