History Main / ThePerryMasonMethod

%% ** Turned UpToEleven in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDBeoUGnYE this]] version of the courtroom sketch with Creator/PeterCook.

* Done in an episode of ''Series/HarrysLaw'' when a mother was convinced of killing her newborn baby, born without a brain. Harry, the mother's lawyer, took to accusing a nurse who had been attending the birth of being the real killer (noting that, for example, the baby's neck had been snapped expertly, by someone who had medical training), and the nurse broke down and confessed.

* The team on ''Series/ThePractice'' used this technique so much that they referred to it as "[[AccuseTheWitness Plan B]]". They became quite infamous for it.
** The Practice example is generally a subversion as the witness they accuse is almost never guilty and the tactic is really just a ploy to create reasonable doubt for clients that they know ARE guilty.
*** Alan Shore uses the same trick in an episode of ''Series/ThePractice'' spinoff ''Series/BostonLegal,'' complete with LampshadeHanging.

** One particularly memorable three-parter ("D-Girl"/"Turnaround"/"Showtime") involved a defendant who was a famous movie director with a powerful legal team that had managed to stymie most of [=McCoy=]'s usual legal wrangling. When [=McCoy=] eventually managed to get him on the stand, however, he essentially goaded the director by playing his ego with the knowledge that the victim, his ex-wife and producer, had basically wrecked his career by spitefully blocking his desired projects and forcing him to work on films that were beneath him. The director eventually explodes, grabs the murder weapon and screams "That vindictive bitch, ''I could have made something --''" before he calms down enough to realize he's been lured into this trope.
** And this happened after McCoy basically lampshaded what he was doing.

** Turned UpToEleven in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPDBeoUGnYE this]] version of the courtroom sketch with Creator/PeterCook.

* Almost every episode of ''Franchise/PerryMason'' ever made. In one of the TV movies (late 80s-early 90s), a middle-aged woman's alibi involved changing a flat tire. Mason has a worker demonstrate how lugnuts are tightened at the shop using an air wrench, and invites her to show the court how she was able to remove them without power tools. She couldn't. This was itself a use of ConvictionByCounterfactualClue; if it really was impossible to remove lugnuts that had been tightened with an air wrench, ''no one'' would be able to change a tire except a mechanic with an air wrench; the usual method for too-tight bolts is adding a piple or other length to add leverage.

* Almost every episode of ''Franchise/PerryMason'' ever made. In one of the TV movies (late 80s-early 90s), a middle-aged woman's alibi involved changing a flat tire. Mason has a worker demonstrate how lugnuts are tightened at the shop using an air wrench, and invites her to show the court how she was able to remove them without power tools. She couldn't (this was itself a use of ConvictionByCounterfactualClue; if it really was impossible to remove lugnuts that had been tightened with an air wrench, ''no one'' would be able to change a tire except a mechanic with an air wrench).

** In the many, many, MANY Perry Mason books, [[NeverLiveItDown Perry didn't pull this trope all that often.]] In one, he badgered the witness not to get him to confess, but to get him to tell the court how he stored his money -putting the money, usually twenties, in cans, marking the date on them, and burying them in his junkyard.[[note]]Twenties in 1960s' money, and the guy had survived the Depression.[[/note]] Relevant because twenties the man was carrying came from cans buried two weeks before the robbery, but had serial numbers matching those of twenties claimed to be taken in the robber.[[note]]The company kept track of money for payroll by writing down the serial numbers of all twenties and dating each ''file'', not entry.[[/note]] The real crook had put a page from the previous payroll into the file for the current one, then made sure their patsy had some of the previously recorded twenties to frame them for the robber.

** In the many, many, MANY Perry Mason books, [[NeverLiveItDown Perry didn't pull this trope all that often.]]

* The climax of ''Film/AFewGoodMen'' is probably the [[TropeCodifier Trope Codifier]]: Danny Kaffee pins the futures of both his clients and his own to the hope that his final witness - [[spoiler: Colonel Jessup]] - will confess to having ordered the illegal "Code Red" drill that resulted in the death of the victim. Deconstructed, as Kaffee explains to the rest of the defense team that [[spoiler:Jessup]] ''wants'' to confess, because he thinks he did the right thing. Or another way to say it is, he wants to take credit and brag. Still, Kaffee carries this out ''beautifully'', [[spoiler: by first catching Jessup in a lie, then appealing to the man's ego by assaulting him with a series of questions (with both Kaffee and Jessup ''repeatedly'' ignoring the defense's ''and the Judge's'' orders to belay their argument) about the Code Red incident until Jessup gets fed up with Kaffee's supposed defiance and snaps, [[EngineeredPublicConfession ranting at the entire courtroom about his actions]] and how none of them could ''possibly'' understand the "sacrifices" he made in the name of national defense.]]

** [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_253/7530-Phoenix-Wrights-Objection Reportedly]] at least partially TruthInTelevision in Japan. The seemingly ludicrous success rates of convictions and absurd amount of power the fictional prosecutors hold aren't as unrealistic as one might hope, and Phoenix's apparent high success rate would be thought just as ludicrous in Japan, and his PerpetualPoverty is not a far cry from reality.

* The climax of ''Film/AFewGoodMen'' is probably the [[TropeCodifier Trope Codifier]]: Danny Kaffee pins the futures of both his clients and his own to the hope that his final witness - [[spoiler: Colonel Jessup]] - will confess. Deconstructed, as Kaffee explains to the rest of the defense team that [[spoiler:Jessup]] ''wants'' to confess, because he thinks he did the right thing. Or another way to say it is, he wants to take credit and brag. Still, Kaffee carries this out ''beautifully'', [[spoiler: by first catching Jessup in a lie, then appealing to the man's ego by assaulting him with a series of questions (with both Kaffee and Jessup ''repeatedly'' ignoring the defense's ''and the Judge's'' orders to belay their argument) about the Code Red incident until Jessup gets fed up with Kaffee's supposed defiance and snaps, [[EngineeredPublicConfession ranting at the entire courtroom about his actions]] and how none of them could ''possibly'' understand the "sacrifices" he made in the name of national defense.]]

* The climax of ''Film/AFewGoodMen'' is probably the [[TropeCodifier Trope Codifier]]: Danny Kaffee pins the futures of both his clients and his own to the hope that his final witness - [[spoiler: Colonel Jessup]] - will confess. Deconstructed, as Kaffee explains to the rest of the defense team that [[spoiler:Jessup]] ''wants'' to confess, because he thinks he did the right thing. Or another way to say it is, he wants to take credit.

* In an episode of The Jack Benny Program (1961), Jack gets a ticket for a noisy rooster. He then has a dream where he is on trial for murdering the rooster. He employs the greatest lawyer ever, Perry Mason (played by Raymond Burr in a terrific comedy turn) but dream Mason turns out to be an idiot (he tries dressing as Abraham Lincoln to sway the judge) and is soundly trounced by the guy who says "Yeeeeeeesssssss". Mason even winds up getting ''himself'' to confess that he was the one who really murdered the rooster at the end.

* ''Series/{{Psych}}'': In "Cloudy... With A Chance Of Murder" features Shawn and Gus making their way onto the defense team of a woman Shawn believes to be innocent. Naturally, it ends with Shawn figuring out the real killer and badgering them into a VillainousBreakdown on the stand. ''Most'' of his cases end this way, actually, but this was the only one in a courtroom setting.

* Works for Elle Woods in ''Film/LegallyBlonde'', although she doesn't initially suspect the witness (the daughter of the murder victim). It's when the witness mentions that on the morning her father (the victim) was murdered, she had gone out to get her hair permed and then came home to take a shower that makes Elle realize that there's a flaw in what the woman is saying--Elle, being a [[TheFashionista fashion-and-beauty expert]], [[TruthInTelevision knows you should wait at least 24-hours to get your hair wet after getting it permed]]. After pointing out that little tidbit to the rest of the court (as well as using an example of when a sorority sister of hers had made the mistake of getting her hair wet to soon after getting it permed), Elle performs an aggressive cross-examination, which eventually gets the witness to confess that she's the true murderer. [[spoiler:The girl further confesses that she was actually trying to shoot her stepmother, largely because she resented the fact that her father married someone the same age as her. Unfortunately, the witness ended up shooting her father by mistake due to being mistaken as to who was coming through the door at the time.]]

This is a popular way to avert the FridgeLogic inherent in ConvictionByContradiction; in this case, catching the witness in a lie doesn't prove they're the culprit; it just convinces ''them'' the jig is up so they'll convict themselves by confessing. When played straight, this one is also a subtrope of HollywoodLaw--defense attorneys often discredit witnesses through various means and posit other potential suspects (named or unnamed), but forcing a confession is difficult to do without being disbarred. In the United States and the United Kingdom, forcing the defense to prove that [[GuiltyUntilSomeoneElseIsGuilty someone else is guilty]] is ShiftingTheBurdenOfProof (in a criminal case), but this is rarely mentioned in [[LawProcedural media]], as it removes the "solve the mystery" element.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'': 95% of the perps confess after 'Sleeping Koguro' (Conan using tranquilizers and a voice modulator) systematically deduces how it could only be the perp, usually in an attempt to give a FreudianExcuse. About 5% are just bad people who want to boast about it anyway.

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* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'': 95% of the perps confess after 'Sleeping Koguro' (Conan using tranquilizers and a voice modulator) systematically deduces how it could only be the perp, usually in an attempt to give a freudian excuse. About 5% are just bad people who want to boast about it anyway.

This is a popular way to avert the FridgeLogic inherent in ConvictionByContradiction; in this case, catching the witness in a lie doesn't prove they're the culprit; it just convinces ''them'' the jig is up so they'll convict themselves by confessing. When played straight, this one is also a subtrope of HollywoodLaw -- defense attorneys often discredit witnesses through various means and posit other potential suspects (named or unnamed), but forcing a confession is difficult to do without being disbarred. In the United States and the United Kingdom, forcing the defence to prove that someone else is guilty is ShiftingTheBurdenOfProof (in a criminal case), but this is rarely mentioned in [[LawProcedural media]], as it removes the "solve the mystery" element.

Averting this trope is one reason why in RealLife defence attorneys usually try and avoid calling their client to the stand unless there's absolutely, positively no other choice -- the last thing they want is their client getting flustered and goaded into coming out with something potentially incriminating before a jury.

* ''Series/PerryMason2020'': {{Discussed}} and {{subverted}}. While Perry tries this with Ennis on the stand, he was warned ahead of time he won't just get a confession in open court. Sure enough, he fails to.

* Spoofed by ''Perry Mason'' fan Creator/DaveBarry in the column [[TheTroubleWithTickets "Traffic Infraction, He Wrote"]]:

* Literature/JudgeDee sometimes does this, occasionally even using torture, and he's the ''judge''. {{Justified}} in that convictions in his setting (AD 600s China) ''had'' to be obtained through confessions. Some villains would hold out even when incontrovertible proof was being displayed.

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* Almost every episode of ''Franchise/PerryMason'' ever made. In one of the TV movies (late 80s-early 90s), a middle-aged woman's alibi involved changing a flat tire. Mason has a worker demonstrate how lugnuts are tightened at the shop using an air wrench, and invites her to show the court how she was able to remove them without power tools. She couldn't. (This was itself a use of ConvictionByCounterfactualClue; if it really was impossible to remove lugnuts that had been tightened with an air wrench, ''no one'' would be able to change a tire except a mechanic with an air wrench.)