Basic Trope: A character accused of a crime is presumed guilty until someone else is proven guilty.
- Straight:
- Bob is accused of murder. The townsfolk aren't convinced of his innocence until Alice catches Carol, the true culprit.
- Bob is accused of murder. He won't be acquitted in court unless Alice catches the real culprit.
- Exaggerated: Bob is accused of a crime that happened halfway across the world, and Alice proves indisputably that Bob couldn't have been there at the time of the crime. He still isn't let off until Alice catches the real culprit.
- Downplayed:
- Carol accuses Bob of stealing her cookies, and isn't convinced he didn't do it until Alice proves it was Dan who ate them.
- After merely proving Bob's innocence doesn't get him off the hook, Alice manages to prove the culprit could only be either Carol or Dan. While she can't prove which of the two it is, this is just enough for Bob be finally let off.
- Bob provides a solid alibi and is legally acquitted. However, the majority of the townsfolk still believe that he is guilty and faked his alibi somehow until Alice catches Carol.
- Justified:
- The townsfolk just really hate Bob, and are using the situation as an excuse to screw him over.
- The court system is horribly stacked against the defense.
- Bob has actually stolen Carol's cookies in the past, and she refuses to accept any other explanation until Dan is exposed.
- Technically, Bob is being presumed innocent until proven guilty. It's just that Alice's arguments against the accusations do not hold water unless Carol did it, so she has to prove Carol's guilt.
- Inverted: Bizarrely, everyone presumes Bob innocent until Dave is cleared of suspicion, at which point they suddenly start suspecting Bob. In other words, he was presumed innocent until someone else was proven innocent.
- Subverted: Alice proves Bob's innocence without indicting anyone else, and while there's a push to continue suspecting him, he's ultimately let off.
- Double Subverted: New evidence makes Bob a suspect again, and this time he won't be cleared until the real culprit is caught.
- Parodied: Bob is accused of witchcraft, despite the fact that magic is known not to exist in Bob's world, but suspicion still won't die down until Alice somehow proves someone else guilty.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Suspects are always cleared simply by disproving the case against them, no need to indict a third party.
- No one is accused of anything.
- Enforced: It's more dramatic and has a more satisfying payoff to write a law procedural where the culprit is caught at the end, instead of the defendant simply being cleared while the crime itself remains a mystery.
- Lampshaded: "Why should I have to catch the culprit? I'm a defense attorney, not a detective!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: When Bob is declared guilty despite being proven innocent simply because the real culprit hasn't been caught, Alice makes an appeal, and the case is declared a mistrial. Bob is tried again by a different judge, and this time he's acquitted.
- Discussed: "I've already built a strong enough case to prove Bob innocent". "That might not be enough, Alice. You might have to figure out who actually did it".
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Alice fails to find the true culprit, so Bob is Convicted by Public Opinion. The resulting ostracism causes him to snap and commit murder for real.
- Many innocent people end up being convicted and sentenced under a system that only acquits defendants when a third party is proven guilty.
- Defense attorneys resort to forging evidence just to frame someone else, whether or not they're the real culprit, resulting in a horrible system that frequently ends up convicting innocent people one way or another.
- Played for Laughs: ???
- Played for Drama: Alice knows who the culprit is, and is in a race against time to prove it before the townsfolk decide to lynch Bob.
Back to Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty
