Basic Trope: A witness is accused of committing the crime themselves.
- Straight: Bob is on trial for murder. Alice, Bob's defense attorney, accuses Carol, a witness, of being the real culprit.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice accuses every single witness.
- Alice accuses the detective, the prosecutor, or even the judge.
- Downplayed: Alice suggests Carol is a potential suspect, but doesn't outright accuse her.
- Justified:
- After picking enough holes in Carol's testimony, Alice has uncovered reasons to believe she's the culprit.
- The court system is terrible, presuming all defendants Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty.
- Inverted:
- Carol is considered a suspect, but isn't on trial yet because Bob is the prime suspect. Alice clears Carol of suspicion hoping that the ramifications of doing so prove Bob innocent as well.
- A witness accuses the defense attorney.
- Subverted: Alice initially makes an argument that seems to implicate Carol, but then goes out of the way to point out she doesn't believe her to be the culprit either.
- Double Subverted:
- Dave testifies next, and Alice accuses him after his testimony falls apart and he ends up incriminating himself.
- Alice eventually unravels more and more of the case as she keeps taking apart Carol's testimony, and does believe she did it, so she accuses her after all.
- Parodied: After determining no one else could have done it, Alice resorts to accusing herself.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Alice clears Bob simply by disproving the prosecution's arguments, without resorting to implicating anyone else.
- No one is tried, accused or suspected of anything.
- No crime is committed.
- Enforced: Catching the culprit makes for a more satisfying conclusion and a more dramatic story than simply clearing the defendant without bringing forth any other suspects.
- Lampshaded: "Why do you always get the cases where one of the witnesses is the culprit?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited:
- Alice doesn't believe Carol to be the culprit, but points to her as a suspect to stall for time so she can figure out more of the case after the trial is put on hold.
- The authorities failed to come up with any suspects other than Bob. While Bob is cleared without anyone else being proven guilty, Alice does prove Carol to be a suspect, so the police jump on this fact to investigate her next.
- Defied: The judge warns Alice that she will be penalized if she directly accuses any witnesses.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: ???
- Deconstructed: Alice earns a reputation for solving cases this way, and people become afraid of winding up as witnesses in her trials, worrying that they might become suspects themselves.
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played for Laughs: ???
- Played for Drama: The only possible argument that could disprove the case against Bob requires Carol to be proven as the real culprit. If Alice fails to prove it, Bob will be declared guilty.
Back to Accuse the Witness.
