History Main / LyingToThePerp

Frequently results in INeverSaidItWasPoison. This is one situation where the perp would usually be smart to have a lawyer around to remind him "DontAnswerThat". See also MustStateIfYoureACop.

* An amusing example in in ''[[Franchise/TheElderScrolls The Elder Scrolls]]'': One of the in-game books (found in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim) tells of a prince who throws a lavish dinner for several of his advisers. After dinner, he brings out a dessert and explains that some of the advisers are spies and were poisoned during the dinner (the narrator is in fact a spy, and it's strongly hinted that [[FlockOfWolves the rest of the advisers present]] are spies as well). He then says that the dessert contains the antidote. This presents [[MortonsFork a conundrum]] to the attendees -- eat the dessert and essentially confess to being a spy, or refrain and possibly die from poison? One of them finally decides to eat... [[spoiler:and dies rather horribly from the poison in the dessert]]. The tale ends with the narrator begging his superiors to be removed from his position. "I cannot win at the games [[MagnificentBastard he]] mastered long ago."

* In Sharyn [=McCrumb=]'s ''[[Literature/BimbosOfTheDeathSun Zombies of the Gene Pool]]'', when he suspects that the murderer's motive was to hide a skeleton in the closet, Jay Omega claims to have the phone number of one of their old lady friends and threatens to uncover the secrets himself. In fact, the piece of paper he's holding is blank, but fear of exposure causes the suspects to confess to a number of misdeeds, including [[spoiler:the fact that several of them raped the aforementioned lady friend when she was drunk at a sci-fi con decades ago.]]

* According to Creator/DavidSimon in ''Homicide'', this is basically a requirement of being a detective. A good detective must be able to read a suspect his Miranda rights, (and in Baltimore) sign a paper showing they've understood them, and then in the very next breath convince the suspect that those rights are meaningless. From there, it's half-truths and lies all the way. For example: One common trick is to confiscate the suspect's shoes and tell the suspect that they're going to check that blood splatter on them to see if it's the victim's blood type. It serves a double-whammy: The suspect is convinced they have evidence, and their faith in themselves is shot; hell, they didn't even notice that any blood splatter had hit their shoes!

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Mash}}'' Hawkeye is wrongly accused of stealing. So he gathers the alternative suspects together in one tent (while dressed up as Sherlock Holmes) and says one of the stolen items was a trap -- it had been coated in a chemical that turns the hands blue. When the guilty party instinctively hides his hands, Hawkeye points out that he was actually bluffing.

* The "Truth Crocodile" in RozenMaiden.

** When Worf's family is accused of treason by the Klingon High Council, Picard -- suspecting the accusation is a cover-up -- calls a woman who served Worf's family as witness, falsely claiming that she has new evidence. The bluff reveals the real traitor, though the High Council is too compromised to drop the charges and Worf is banished from Klingon society.

* An undercover cop pulling a buy-and-bust on ''Series/BreakingBad'' rouses Badger's suspicions, but he covers himself by saying "If you ask a cop straight-up if he's a cop, they ''have'' to say yes. It's like, a law or something." He's asked, he denies it solemnly with his hand to God, and they complete the deal. "You have the right to remain silent..."

* ''Series/{{QI}}'' described an Elizabethan mathematician, John Napier, who "[[FreudWasRight encouraged his servants to stroke his cock]]" - one of them had been stealing, and he got them all together and told them his pet cockerel [[TooDumbToLive could tell when someone who touched it was lying]]. He sent them into a dark room and told them to stroke it, while unbeknownst to them it was covered in soot - the guilty servant was the only one not to have soot on his hands.

-->'''Aiden:''' Officers can lie to the suspects. Legally''.

--> '''Gideon''': Is that why you stabbed him in the groin?"

* Early on in SuikodenI, Odessa uses this to confirm that the pick-up man for a vital blueprint she needed delivered was the real deal (he is).

* ''TheSimpsons'', with the Springfield police catching Homer Simpson by sending him a letter that he'd won a motorboat, before nailing him for his unpaid parking tickets. Despite this [[WhatanIdiot Homer still demanded his motorboat]].

* One case in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' was ended successfully by Phoenix's use of such a lie (confusing the color of a poison vial) to confess (by way of correcting the color, implying that he would have to have done it to know what the real color was).
---> '''Phoenix''': [[spoiler:This bottle has your fingerprints all over it! And it contains... potassium cyanide!]]
---> [[spoiler:'''Tigre''': (laughs) I can see through you Phoenix Wright! That ain't the bottle with the cyanide in it.]]
---> '''Phoenix''': [[spoiler:No, no. This is the bottle we found traces of the poison in.]]
---> [[spoiler:'''Tigre''': Don't mess with The Tiger or you're going to get ripped to shreds! The cyanide bottle was BROWN. And it was made of glass. That cheap piece of trash don't look nothin' like that!]]
---> [[spoiler:(Phoenix just stares at him, Godot's visor is smoking, the judge is shocked and the whole court room is completely silent)]]
---> '''Phoenix''': [[spoiler: (Got him. At last…)]]
---> [[spoiler:'''Tigre''': Wh-What? Why's everyone gone quiet?]]
---> '''Phoenix''': [[spoiler: You were summoned to court for the first time. If you really have nothing to do with this you shouldn't have know those details. How did you know the exact description of the bottle that contains potassium cyanide?]]
** And another involved an extremely subtle lie. [[spoiler: 'Adrian Andrews' is a pretty masculine name, so Wright leads Shelly De Killer on by letting Shelly lie about his meeting with Adrian. He uses male pronouns, so Shelly uses them too...and then Wright accuses him of lying about having ever met Adrian in the first place. Adrian is a woman.]]

* An amusing example in in ''[[Franchise/TheElderScrolls The Elder Scrolls]]'': One of the in-game books (found in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim) tells of a prince who throws a lavish dinner for several of his advisers. After dinner, he brings out a dessert and explains that some of the advisers are spies and were poisoned during the dinner (the narrator is in fact a spy, and it's strongly hinted that [[FlockOfWolves the rest of the advisers present]] are spies as well). He then says that the dessert contains the antidote. This presents [[MortonsFork a conundrum]] to the attendees - eat the dessert and essentially confess to being a spy, or refrain and possibly die from poison? One of them finally decides to eat... [[spoiler: and dies rather horribly from the poison in the dessert]]. The tale ends with the narrator begging his superiors to be removed from his position. "I cannot win at the games [[MagnificentBastard he]] mastered long ago."

** David Simon wrote the ol' photocopier-as-lie-detector trick into yet another series, when Bunk uses it in the opening scene of the fifth season.
** The first season has a particularly egregious example, where the detectives claim that a picture of Bunk's kids are the kids of a murder victim in order to get D'Angelo Barksdale (himself the father of of a young boy) to write a letter saying he's sorry to them. While D'Angelo is mostly writing his condolences and such, the cops hope he will accidentally write something that incriminates either himself or his drug kingpin uncle. D'Angelo's lawyer arrives in time to snatch the letter away, and his the-morons-I-have-to-deal-with demeanor is hilarious.
** This backfired on the cops in another case. A perp was supposed to clean and dispose of a group of guns he and other members of his gang used in a gunfight. The disposal part goes wrong, the cops get ahold of the guns, and bring the perp in. During the interrogation, when he won't implicate himself, they pull out the guns and [[BluffingTheMurderer claim they have his fingerprints on one of them]]. The perp knows he cleaned the guns ''very'' thoroughly, so he challenges them to point out which gun supposedly has his fingerprints. [[CluelessDetective The not too bright detective]], rather than making up an excuse, points to one of the guns at random. It turns out he's pointing to a gun the perp never held, giving away that the cops have no actual hard evidence.

%%** Simon also notes other things of even more dubious legality, such as using a ''Xerox copier'' as a lie detector. The detectives load three sheets of paper, reading "truth", "truth", "lie" into the machine. The questions are answered, and "copy" pressed. What is your name? "Alice" Truth. Where do you live? "Troperville". Truth. Did you kill Bob on the night of the 25th? "No". Lie. Well well well. You lying motherfucker. Confession. Another detective uses the sobriety test ("look at my finger, cross your eyes, stand on one leg"), telling a perp it is a kind of ninja truth technique. This works. Another extremely stupid suspect admits to beating a woman into unconsciousness, robbing her, and orally raping her, but is convinced by a detective's assurance that, because he didn't actually strike the mortal blow, he cannot be charged. As one detective notes: "Ignorant motherfucker."

* In Creator/MichaelConnelly's ''The Scarecrow'', the cops questioning Alonzo Winslow employ this tactic when they tell him his hands match the strangling marks found on the victim's neck. He replies that the victim wasn't strangled. Not only he comes with a reason to know this in spite of not being the killer but he turns out to be the innocent man he claims to be.

** The first season has a particularly egregious example, where the detectives claim that a picture of Bunk's kids are the kids of a murder victim in order to get D'Angelo Barksdale to write a letter saying he's sorry to them. His lawyer arrives in time to snatch it off him, and his the-morons-I-have-to-deal-with demeanor is hilarious.

Frequently results in INeverSaidItWasPoison. This is one situation where the perp would usually be smart to have a lawyer around to remind him "DontAnswerThat".

* An early ''Series/CSINewYork'' episode has a victim whose head was slammed into a restaurant oven; the victim staggered out of the restaurant and collapsed on the street. During the interrogation, the suspect is told "then you followed him out and shot him dead." The suspect immediately admits to the head-slam but not the gunshot, only to discover the victim died of the head trauma and was never shot.

->'''Simone Bryce''': They do it all the time; [[DontAnswerThat that's why I told you to stop.]]

* According to DavidSimon in ''Homicide'', this is basically a requirement of being a detective. A good detective must be able to read a suspect his Miranda rights, (and in Baltimore) sign a paper showing they've understood them, and then in the very next breath convince the suspect that those rights are meaningless. From there, it's half-truths and lies all the way. For example: One common trick is to confiscate the suspect's shoes and tell the suspect that they're going to check that blood splatter on them to see if it's the victim's blood type. It serves a double-whammy: The suspect is convinced they have evidence, and their faith in themselves is shot; hell, they didn't even notice that any blood splatter had hit their shoes!

** The photocopier-as-lie-detector story is actually [[http://www.snopes.com/legal/colander.asp much older]] and probably never happened in real life.
** David Simon mentions instances of the photocopier-as-lie-detector trick in his true crime book ''Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets'', which is the basis for both ''Homicide: Life on the Street'' and (in part) ''The Wire''. Detroit homicide detectives were "publicly upbraided and disciplined by their superiors for using the office Xerox as a polygraph device." When Baltimore detectives read about this, they "wondered why anyone had a problem" because "polygraph by copier was an old trick; it had been attempted on more than one occasion in the sixth-floor Xerox room."

** In ''The Shooting,'' Friday and Gannon are interrogating a pair of suspects who gunned down a patrolman after a drug-store robbery. The patrolman just barely survived, but with no memory of the attack, meaning he can't identify them. Believing the cop dead, the gunman refuses to roll over, telling Friday he has a nice story, but it's useless without a witness to corroborate it. Friday smiles, and opens the door to the interrogation room, revealing the cop, in uniform, very much alive. This is enough to make the partner roll over on the gunman to prevent getting sent up for murdering a cop, which is now on the interrogation room's tape recorder. Friday leaves the room, closing the door, and this exchange takes place:

** In ''The Investigation'', Friday and Gannon are investigating a prospective recruit's background and find an irregularity in his history. The prospect claimed that he left the city where his now ex-wife lives in December of the previous year, but she claims that he left town the previous July, which would mean six months of his life is not accounted for. To resolve the dispute, the detectives ask the recruit's previous employer, Turnbull. They suspect Turnbull would be open to lying in the prospect's favor, so they say the wife claimed he left in '''December''' instead, knowing the boss would either admit reluctantly she was telling the truth, or claim she was lying and admit the recruit left in July. Sure enough, Turnbull accuses the ex-wife of lying and confirms the unfavorable date of July. Turnbull is not pleased to learn that she actually said he left in July, and refuses to answer any more questions.

* In both ''HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' and ''TheWire'', a photocopier pre-loaded with sheets of paper marked "TRUE" and "FALSE" was passed off to a perp as a new, highly accurate, highly ''dangerous'' lie detector. Silly as it sounds, the story originates in David Simon's non-fiction book ''Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets''.
** ''Homicide'' again: Detective Bayliss convinces a perp that his special camera can detect the image of the last thing a murder victim had seen by photographing the dead man's eyes.
** One more ''Homicide'' example: faced with an unflappable perp, a dog-lover who had used arson to conceal a murder, the detective asks, offhand, "We found a dog in the wreckage. Why'd you kill the dog?", a total fabrication. Without thinking, the perp reflexively answers, "I didn't know the dog was there."
** Where ''Homicide'' is concerned, this is a OnceAnEpisode trope if ever there was one.
* David Simon wrote the ol' photocopier-as-lie-detector trick into yet another series, when Bunk uses it in the opening scene of the fifth season of ''TheWire''.
** The first season of TheWire has a particularly egregious example, where the detectives claim that a picture of Bunk's kids are the kids of a murder victim in order to get D'Angelo Barksdale to write a letter saying he's sorry to them. His lawyer arrives in time to snatch it off him, and his the-morons-I-have-to-deal-with demeanor is hilarious.

** David Simon mentions instances of the photocopier-as-lie-detector trick in his true crime book ''Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets'', which is the basis for both ''Homicide: Life on the Street'' and (in part) ''TheWire''. Detroit homicide detectives were "publicly upbraided and disciplined by their superiors for using the office Xerox as a polygraph device." When Baltimore detectives read about this, they "wondered why anyone had a problem" because "polygraph by copier was an old trick; it had been attempted on more than one occasion in the sixth-floor Xerox room."
* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': Warrick convinces a suspect that an on-site DNA test has [=ID'ed=] him as the perp. Really the test only determines if the substance is human blood.

* In the ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' episode "Legacy," Munch tells a victim's mother that her comatose daughter has awakened and "told us everything." After the mother confesses, we find out the little girl is still in a coma.
** Another SVU example: Captain Cragen tells a perpetrator that they used DNA analysis to prove that the cigarettes he smoked were used to burn an old woman. When he goes back behind the two-way mirror, Detective Tutuola reminds him that the lab found all DNA from the lit end of the cigarette to be burned away.

* This one is used in ''[[Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent Criminal Intent]]'' (the first episode, even): Goren convinces the girlfriend of a narcissist perp to help them by convincing her that he gave her AIDS. At the end, when he finds out she betrayed him, she shouted "You killed us both anyway!" to which Eames reveals that neither of them had AIDS after all, to which Goren half-heartedly admits, "I lied. Sorry."

*** Actually they didn't even have to lie in that one; they just asked the guy's wife if she'd found a tooth in their home. They knew she would tell her husband, and that he was such a perfectionist he'd go nuts looking for it.
*** Original flavor had a similar plot, when [=McCoy=] put a comatose girl on the witness list for the trial of her attacker. He also told the doctor that when the perp's lawyer called, he was to say she was awake and talking to police. The doctor agreed to, under protest, and the defense pleads out without checking in person.

*** Subverted in mothership episode "Ritual." Detectives suspect a man of committing murder in a parking garage and then driving out of it, using his magnetic key-card to exit the garage. However, the garage's gate system doesn't record card usages, and with no witnesses they have no way of knowing whether he did actually use his key-card that evening. They decide to bluff and tell him in interrogation, "We checked the readout at the garage. Your card was used just after Uncle Josef got his head bashed in." As they say this, the suspect lights up with a smile and faint glimmer in his eyes. "The magnetic card system?" he calmly replies; "You can't get a readout from that thing." D'oh!
*** This actually happens a fair few times on various incarnations of "Law & Order". Considering the sheer number of episodes the show has, a GenreSavvy perp makes things interesting.
** An important distinction is also made in another episode of the mothership when Jamie Ross plays a clever game of half-truths to convince a perp to surrender the gun he used to kill a woman. Though she's able to convince the judge to allow the gun into evidence anyway, he makes it clear that while he accepts the idea that cops can lie to suspects, he expects more of an ADA.
*** Also from CI; the detectives are investigating the immolation of a journalist who was investigating this sick girl. Turns out [[spoiler: the girl never existed, and was her "parents" tricking people into giving them money or medical equipment they could sell for profit]] They tell the girl's "parents" that said Journalist left some money to her and they'd get it if they helped catch the murderer [[note]] a woman who truly believed the girl existed and killed the guy because he was sure she didn't and was going to expose that. [[/note]] After they do, the woman asks when they get the money, with the cops explaining there is no money and arresting them, causing the woman to yell to the murderer something along the lines of "you ruined everything!"
* Similarly on ''OneLifeToLive''. Rookie cop Andy has been arrested on charges of corruption, thanks to being framed by the cop who was actually guilty. Also arrested is a local hoodlum who has been trying to help her in her investigation of the crooked cop. When the police commissioner interrogates the hood, he tells him "Andy already told me everything, so we just need your statement, etc." However, having been in and out of the system, the guy is fully aware of the tricks that cops use and doesn't believe him for a second. Not to mention the fact that he knows full well that he and Andy are innocent and that Andy, being a cop herself, isn't likely to fall for the police tactics either.

* In ''Series/TheShield'' episode "Blood and Water", Det. Vic Mackey (who is blue eyed, with head shaved) pretends to be a neo-Nazi to get a suspect to open up (it doesn't work).

* Though not itself a CrimeFiction, the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Drumhead" had an interrogator use this tactic on a young medical bay Lieutenant. A Klingon spying for the Romulans was discovered early in the program shortly after an explosion rocked the ''Enterprise'''s warp core, seemingly committed by sabotage. The explosion was later discovered to be caused by a faulty seal, but convinced of the Lieutenant's guilt by association to the spy, and the fact that his grandfather is Romulan, the interrogator attempts to force a confession out of him by claiming that evidence was found of a corrosive chemical causing the explosion, which the Lieutenant had access to. Subverted when the Lieutenant (rightfully) rebuffs the accusation, and Picard later chides the interrogator for using the tactic as unjustified and uncalled-for. In this case, the unethical interrogator had even opened up the previously private interviews to a public audience; presumably, so that the false accusation would apply even ''more'' pressure by destroying the young officer's reputation whether it was true or not. Picard is then hauled before the interrogator himself for questioning its methods, where he gives her a well-deserved TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, pointing out the similarities with [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything numerous other unfair legal processes in the past]].

* ''NYPDBlue'': Two lies used frequently were: A) A vehicle was involved in an accident and your license plate number was reported, it's probably just a mix-up but we have to do the paperwork; B) [Victim having died without identifying anyone] 1. The victim is talking and has identified you so it'll go easier if you confess, 2. You should write out a confession telling your side of the story, 3. The victim is dead, you're going away for murder based on your confession, you SOB.

* Happens all the time on ''Series/CriminalMinds''. One particularly memorable episode involved Jason Gideon helpfully providing prayer time/rugs/etc. for an imprisoned Muslim fellow, but really he was just manipulating the guy's sense of time.

*** Kind of deconstructed in "Reckoner", where Rossi lies to a somewhat sympathetic Unsub by making him (and even the team) think that he slept with his late wife multiple times. The Unsub ends up [[spoiler:dying before we learn that it wasn't true]].

* Also [[strike:happens all the time]] OnceAnEpisode (if not more) on ''Series/TheCloser''. Perhaps the ultimate example was when Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson told the perp that [[RefugeInAudacity she was the public defender assigned to him]].

*** She apparently didn't ''say'' she was his public defender, she just implied it and let him jump to that conclusion. She does introduce herself as being from the Public Defender's office, but those watching the interview also note that in this case the deception is only fine as long as the witness doesn't say anything they have to prosecute him for.

* In one episode of ''Shark'', the title character attempts to coax a confession out of a perp by claiming that someone will testify against him unless he signs a confession. The problem is that the supposed person is dead and the lie falls through immediately when the man's lawyer notices how quickly Stark is pushing for him to sign it. Stark almost ends up losing his license to practice law as a result.

* {{QI}} described an Elizabethan mathematician, John Napier, who "[[FreudWasRight encouraged his servants to stroke his cock]]" - one of them had been stealing, and he got them all together and told them his pet cockerel [[TooDumbToLive could tell when someone who touched it was lying]]. He sent them into a dark room and told them to stroke it, while unbeknownst to them it was covered in soot - the guilty servant was the only one not to have soot on his hands.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' does the "divide and conquer" ploy in "The Double Down" to break the beta of the StrangersOnATrainPlotMurder pair.

* Non- CrimeFiction example: In ''ThreesCompany'', Janet exposes a crooked health inspector who demanded a bribe in order to keep Jacks' perfectly acceptable restaurant open:

* On ''[[Series/{{WithoutATrace}} Without a Trace]]'' this came back to bite [[spoiler: Elena's old partner: she told a murderous drug dealer that a neighborhood woman saw him kill one of his rivals. The dealer never cracked and instead put out a hit on the woman from jail and was never charged with either murder.]]

* In one episode of ''{{Neighbours}}'', a man arrested for assaulting Chris names Jarrod as the man who paid him to. Jarrod effortlessly exposes him as a liar by showing up at the interview with Superintendent Hayes and leading Walton to believe he is his Legal Aid lawyer. By the following scene he has changed his story.
* Played for laughs on ''{{The Golden Girls}}''. One of the ''EmptyNest'' characters, Barbara, had crossed over for the episode and had to help the girls when a guy came into the house with a gun.

-->-- A [[SelfMadeOrphan girl who killed her mother]] learns about this trope the hard way on ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''

* In the ''[[LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit Law And Order: Special Victims Unit]]'' episode "Legacy," Munch tells a victim's mother that her comatose daughter has awakened and "told us everything." After the mother confesses, we find out the little girl is still in a coma.

* In ''TheShield'' episode "Blood and Water", Det. Vic Mackey (who is blue eyed, with head shaved) pretends to be a neo-Nazi to get a suspect to open up (it doesn't work).