History Main / ConfessToALesserCrime

** In the first season, Skyler confronts Walt about his odd behavior and why he is consorting with a drug dealer. Walt, who has recently entered the crystal meth business, "confesses" that he's been buying marijuana from Jesse.

** Later on, when Walt has to explain all the money he's been making to his [=DEA=] brother-in-law Hank, he [[spoiler: (actually his wife Skyler)]] says he earned it from counting cards.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

** In the first season, Skyler confronts Walt about his odd behavior and why he is consorting with a drug dealer. Walt "confesses" that he's been buying marijuana from Jesse.

* ''Series/{{Cluedo}}'': Only the killers are allowed to lie to the interviewers, and so they sometimes confess to smaller crimes instead of the bigger ones that provide their motive for murder. For instance, [[spoiler:in "The Best Insurance", Reverend Green claims to fear Cosmopolitan Insurance because he lied about his health status while getting life insurance from them. Actually, he lied on his insurance claim after the church was robbed to be reimbursed for items that he didn't own and had merely borrowed.]]

* Similarly inverted in ''Over The Hills And Far Away''; the man is convicted of armed robbery because his pistol was found at the crime scene and he had no alibi, because [[spoiler: he'd been sleeping with his best friend's wife at the time.]]

* ''Fanfic/TheKingNobodyWanted:'' After his appointment to the Small Council, Rys Chelsted tells Davos about how his family first came to the Westeros while making a point about how Davos shouldn't feel like the {{Blue Blood}}s are better than him. He describes how the first Lord Chelsted gained prosperity in a RapePillageAndBurn manner. The chronicles say that there was "some" rape in the process. Rys disdainfully notes that for the chronicles [[WrittenByTheWinners to even acknowledge that at all]], there must have been a ''lot'' of rape, which the first Lord Chelsted then downplayed by confessing to a lesser number of rapes done in the heat of battle to appear contrite about the whole affair.

* UsefulNotes/AlexanderHamilton's "Reynolds Pamphlet" was written with this goal. While it's largely known as the document directly connected to America's first sex scandal, many forget why he wrote it in the first place: to deny allegations of financial speculation and treason. James Reynolds, the husband of the woman Hamilton was sleeping with, had allowed the affair to continue for as long as he was paid, so when he was arrested for defrauding veterans' pensions, he attempted to take Hamilton down with him by accusing him of the same financial crimes. Given that Hamilton was Treasury Secretary at the time, if the allegations had born fruit then he would have been arrested for treason and likely hung, so instead he publicly confessed to the infidelity while denying the financial crimes.

* In "I Shot The Sherrif" the protagonist confesses the murder of the sherrif, but claims he didn't shoot his deputy. Confessing the murder of the official higher in ranking instead of the lower one will no doubt result in a stronger sentence if he is ever caught.

* In 1974, Mexican authorities arrested a number of men for smuggling indigenous artifacts. Among them was one [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%ADgido_Lara Brígido Lara]], who insisted that the artifacts in question were all fake: he wasn't a smuggler, he was a forger. He eventually proved his case and was exonerated, and now makes a living crafting completely legal replicas. His forgeries were good enough to fool many experts until he showed them what to look for, and even ended up in several museums, some of which still don't believe they were duped.

* ''Series/{{Dexter}}''. Dexter confesses to Rita that he drugged her ex-husband and claims he's a recovering heroin addict in order to explain how he knew what dose to give him. He later goes to an NA meeting to throw Doakes off the scent. Unlike Rita, Doakes is only convinced for a short time.

* In the ''Anime/AceAttorney'' anime, Furio Tigre admits to impersonating Phoenix Wright in court, but not to [[spoiler: killing Glen Elg]]. Of course, [[RealityEnsues the fact that he admitted to anything at all keeps him on the spot]], and Wright is able to deduce his real crime anyway.

** A similar method is used in the Franchise/PerryMason book ''The Case of the Cautious Coquette'' - a murderer tries to take credit for a hit-and-run to hide his role in ending his partner's life. Unfortunately for him, there was an eyewitness, who wrote down the actual hit-and-run's license plate.

* After underage SerialKiller Craig Price murdered the Heaton family, the police determined that the killer cut his hand in the process. Price's injury was noticed, he claimed it was the result of drunken vandalism. The police quickly saw through the story due to a lack of a vandalism report and broken glass on the street the alleged vandalism occurred on. He later admitted the crimes as incldung the detail about cutting himself in the process.

* In 1974, Mexican authorities arrested a number of men for smuggling indigenous artifacts. Among them was one [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%ADgido_Lara Brígido Lara]], who insisted that the artifacts in question were all fake: he wasn't a smuggler, he was a ''forger''. He eventually proved his case and was exonerated, and now makes a living crafting completely legal replicas. His forgeries were good enough to fool many experts until he showed them what to look for, and even ended up in several museums, some of which ''still'' don't believe they were duped.

** The killer of the third case of ''VisualNovel/DaiGyakutenSaiban 2'' confesses to being an accomplice to another character's murder plan, and demands the trial end in a Not Guilty verdict for the defendant. Them being so insistent on a quick end to the trial makes Ryunosuke very suspicious though, and he gets the verdict postponed so they can hear one more testimony. Sure enough, it reveals they really murdered the victim personally.