Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty

"While it was ridiculous to think that Walter's freedom depended on the arrest of someone else ... people would think he'd gotten away with murder until the actual killer was identified. We had long ago concluded that finding the real murderer might be the most effective way to free Walter."

— Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy (the book)

A misdeed has occurred, and one character — usually a protagonist — is assumed to be the culprit, either because they have a history of being a troublemaker, or simply because they were the first to find the body — the second person on the scene of the crime saw them standing next to the victim and naturally assumed that they did it. The problem is that the accused character is innocent. While the character's closest friends and relatives may believe their innocence, everyone else will believe they're guilty. The "evidence" can sometimes be wafer thin and lacking coherence, such as a motive. Arguments in their defense tend to be ignored — the other characters will still believe they did it. The only way everyone will be convinced that the accused isn't guilty is with the strongest evidence of all: exposing the true culprit, and yet this is not a Kangaroo Court — the court simply follows its own inscrutable train of thought, and will clear your name once it becomes apparent that the prosecution was trying to frame you. It's just that the standards for proof are apparently — and hopefully — very different from real life.

Exaggerated examples of this trope ("You've presented an iron-clad alibi proving Bob couldn't possibly have committed the crime. But unless you find the actual perpetrator for us, we're gonna convict Bob anyway.") are also examples of the logical fallacy Shifting the Burden of Proof. Clear My Name, Clear Their Name, and The Perry Mason Method frequently overlap with this. Compare Not Me This Time. Compare Suspect Existence Failure, which is another trope that uses bulletproof evidence for a suspect's innocence.

Due to the nature of this trope, every single example contains spoilers, so all of them will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Inuyasha: This is the name of the game for half demons due to the severe and intense hatred that they get from both humans and full-blood demons. Whenever anything happens they're always the first to be blamed and the last to be cleared of suspicion largely for the crime of existing.
• Moriarty the Patriot: In the Study in "S" arc, the police are led to believe that Holmes is a murderer so he's compelled to find the true killer in order to prove himself innocent.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Sector Security arrests Jack Atlas because someone who both had the same Duel Runner model and a copy of his ace monster Red Dragon Archfiend (which in series is a one of a kind) ran other Turbo Duelists off the road, injuring them. Everyone only gets convinced of his innocence once they see both the real Jack and the imposter riding their Duel Runners at the same time, showing that the imposter was responsible for the crashes.

Asian Animation

• Simple Samosa: In the "Samosa Mama" episode, Samosa is the target suspect of kidnapping but never actually committed the misdeed. The only people who believe he's innocent are his friends, one of whom (specifically Vada) goes to locate the actual "perpetrator,"^note he never kidnapped the assumed victims at all and was actually looking for those friends of his Special Samosa, and brings him to the courtroom right as Samosa is about to be wrongfully punished over it.

Fanwork

• A justified case in the Ace Attorney / Miraculous Ladybug crossover Tales of Kitty-Whiskers and Ladybug, where Mike Meekins is on trial for killing his boss Rekta Resu while he was the akuma Bad Badger. In this case, Apollo Justice has to prove that Mike Meekins was under the mental corruption of the supervillain Hawkmoth, and thus should not be charged for a crime outside of his normal mental state.

Films — Live-Action

• Captain America: Civil War: Security footage implicates Bucky Barnes for a bombing in Vienna, and he only gets proven innocent once evidence is discovered that he was framed by Zemo, the real mastermind behind the terrorist attack. His history as a brainwashed assassin, along with his extremely violent escape (also arranged and induced by Zemo) only makes him look more guilty.
• In The Cocoanuts, after Mrs. Potter's stolen necklace has been recovered from beachfront lot #26, Bob is accused of stealing it simply because he refused to explain why he was so determined to win the bidding for the lot. It's because he and Polly wish to build their dream home there.
• Gattaca: Vincent is suspected of murdering his mission director until another party is found to be the culprit.
• National Treasure: After Ben finds the treasure and the police finally catch up with them, he tries to make a deal, but the officer tells him that after the Declaration of Independence was stolen, someone has to go to jail. Ben only gets off by successfully arranging for Ian to get caught and locked up instead (which is about half fair, given Ian's involvement).
• Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins: The gang are accused of intentionally disrupting the school pep-rally and of vandalizing it during their late-night break-in. Though they're innocent, they're suspended and then expelled for it, forcing them to investigate and find the real culprit. After they catch their principal in disguise as Specter and he gets arrested, they're finally allowed back in the school.
• In There's Something About Mary, Ted is arrested for being serial killer, and due to a comedic misunderstanding, appears to nonchalantly confess. Fortunately for Ted, they soon catch the guy who presumably actually did it.
• In Time After Time, the police arrest a time-travelling H.G. Wells in 1979 for a string of murders that were actually committed by Jack the Ripper. He insists that his love interest Amy is in danger from the real killer and says he'll confess on the condition that they protect her. Jack strikes again before they get to Amy's apartment, killing Amy's roommate, whom they mistake at the time for Amy.

Literature

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Muff Potter is accused of the murder of Dr. Robinson—an allegation he doesn't contest because he believes he blacked out drunk at the crime scene (in actual fact he was knocked out by the doctor at the start of the fight) and woke up with a knife in his hand. After his arrest, no one in town doubts that he did it. When he is about to be sentenced to death, Tom Sawyer steps out at the trial because he and Huckleberry Finn witnessed Injun Joe commit the act and then frame Muff. Joe, who is present, flees from the courtroom, leading to all charges against Muff be dropped.
• In the The Dresden Files novel Turn Coat, Warden Morgan is accused of killing a member of the White Council. It soon becomes apparent that barring clear evidence someone else is responsible Morgan will take the fall. And at the end, he willingly accepts blame to protect the council.
• In the Guardians Of Gahoole spin-off series Wolves Of The Beyond book "Shadow Wolf", Faolan gets accused of murdering a pup he cared for, which only gets accelerated when framed evidence is found. It gets to the point where his entire pack is about to brutally slaughter him as punishment...until they're told that the real murderer is Heep, the very same wolf that framed Faolan.
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Minister Fudge wants to be seen as doing something about the ongoing attacks on students, so he sends Hagrid to Azkaban, despite the lack of actual evidence against him, until the true culprit is found.
• Little Men: Nat is accused of theft. He's the only suspect and assumed guilty because for two reasons: he was the only one besides the victim who knew where the money was, and he has a history of lying to make himself look better, which he's trying to overcome). The other boys treat him like dirt until the true thief reveals himself.
• The overarching plot of Mairelon the Magician is that Mairelon has been framed for stealing the Saltash Set and needs to find the real thief to clear his name. As revealed near the end of the story, he actually has an alibi for the night of the theft, but he feels that if he can't find the real thief Society will continue to assume it was him, whatever the Law might say.
• In Precious And The Monkeys, two of Precious's classmates have their lunch stolen. They assume it was their other classmate Poloko, since he's fat and they assume being fat means being a Big Eater. Precious, however, then sees that it was some monkeys that stole them and when she proves it was the monkeys, the two classmates immediately apologize to Poloko.
• The Thrawn Trilogy: Talon Karrde is suspected of hiring Imperials that attacked a smuggler meeting because data was planted in his ship implicating him. Once Niles Ferrier says the name of the Imperial Lieutenant despite nobody mentioning it, everyone realizes that Niles was actually responsible, proving Karrde's innocence.

Live-Action TV

• Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction: In the "Positive I.D." episode, a reporter goes to the local police precinct to find a story, only to be identified as a liquor store robber, and he's even shown footage of him holding the cashier at gunpoint. After spending several hours in lockup, where he doubts his own innocence, he's freed and shown the real robber who looks like him. He manages to dig up information on the robber, and turns out they are twin brothers given up for adoption. While the reporter was adopted by a loving couple, his brother went through different foster homes, being abused all the while, until he aged out of the system.
• Doctor Who: In "Black Orchid", the Doctor is wrongfully accused of murder. He asks why he would have killed someone that he had only just met... but these clever tricks don't work of course.
• Drake & Josh: In the episode "Honor Council", Drake is accused of moving Mrs. Hayfer's car into her classroom. Despite the question of how he would've done it going unanswered, people become more and more convinced that he was responsible, and even his stepbrother Josh, who was initially on his side, starts to believe he did it. It's only by getting Josh's rival Mindy Crenshaw to confess to the crime after being tipped off by Megan that he manages to clear his name.
• The Flash (2014): Barry's father Henry Allen is in jail for Barry's mother's murder. He was found at the scene of the crime covered in her blood with his fingerprints on the murder weapon (because he was trying to save her life) and Barry's witness testimony that "the room filled with lightning and the man in the lightning killed my mother" isn't considered credible. As an adult, Barry learns that the real killer is Eobard Thawne aka Reverse Flash aka Harrison Wells, but still lacks the evidence to clear his father's name. When Thawne dies, he leaves a taped confession in his video will so that Henry will finally be freed.
• Game of Thrones: Cersei is completely convinced that Tyrion poisoned Joffrey, her son. Once Olenna confesses to Jaime that she killed Joffrey and Jaime tells his sister, Cersei finally realizes Tyrion is innocent.
• House of Anubis:
  • In late season 3, Eddie has a vision that warns him of one of his friends pulling a Face–Heel Turn. KT ends up being accused as the culprit thanks to a fingerprint-scanner Fabian had, and this causes the rest of Sibuna to isolate and bully her. She was innocent, but no matter what she did she couldn't get them to believe it wasn't her. She was only proven innocent, and thus trusted again, once everyone realized the actual traitor was Patricia, albeit with her soul stolen. It was a bit late by that point though, as KT almost ditched them, and Fabian ended up getting turned soon after.
  • In "The Touchstone of Ra", the touchstone gets stolen from the museum and put into Eddie's bag. The freshman Dexter is Mistaken for Thief, because he was interested in the touchstone and even fell asleep in the same room as it. The only person willing to believe his innocence is Patricia, but nobody else trusts him until it's discovered that the true culprit was Sophia.
• The Law According to Lidia Poët: Lidia always proves a client innocent by showing that someone else committed the murder they're accused of, who then gets arrested for it while they are released (aside from the one case where she defends a guilty person, who confesses).
• One episode of Law & Order: SVU has Stabler learn that a man he'd arrested years ago was innocent of the crime when he (Stabler) stumbles across the real killer during a different investigation. A guest cop throws the guilty man out a window before the innocent man can be exonerated. A later episode confirms that he's still in jail because Stabler was unable to find hard evidence or get a confession proving his innocence.
• Psych: In the episode Dead Bear Walking, Shawn is able to prove that the bear did not kill its handler. However, Cody Blair (the county director of animal control) decides that the execution will still happen unless he and Gus find the true culprit within 12 hours.
• Sharpe: In "Sharpe's Revenge", Richard is accused of stealing Napoleon's treasure chests, killing and mutilating its guards. The real thief had sent a written testimony that he did it. It doesn't really seem to matter how he was supposed to have known this treasure even existed, let alone where and when to intercept it, or where he was able to hide a huge stash of coins, with or without accomplices. Okay, the prosecution does claim that he had recently lost all his money, providing a motive - but that hadn't happened yet at the time the crime took place.

Video Games

• Among Us: If there's no hard evidence to prove someone's a crewmate, no one will believe anyone isn't an imposter until the game ends, which always reveals who the crewmates and imposters are.
• Criminal Case: Travel in Time: In case 26, Toduun treatens to find the T.I.M.E. agents guilty if you don't catch the real killer.
• Divinity: Original Sin II: In a murder mystery Sidequest, the Magisters don't believe any evidence of their prime suspect's innocence until you identify the real killer. Subverted when they still don't call off the hunt, insisting that the original suspect must be guilty of something, which requires you to smuggle the man out of town to keep him alive.
• Escape from Monkey Island sees Guybrush framed for a bank robbery and placed under a form of house arrest, restricting him to the island until trial. The only way to clear Guybrush's name is to catch the real criminal and prove his guilt.
• Super Mario Sunshine: The people of Delfino Plaza believe that Mario is the one who polluted their island with insidious paint (despite the fact that Mario looks very different from the sinister-looking Shadow Mario and had only arrived in Isle Delfino minutes before being arrested). The court of Delfino Plaza decide that Mario is to be held responsible for the paint until the actual criminal is captured.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: While this is not an actual rule in this universe's already bizarre law system, the games will almost always require you to continue until the actual killer is caught. While in most cases, this is a natural consequence of the protagonist being unable to decisively prove their client innocent until they've explained and proven the entire crime down to the last detail, there are several instances where you're able to get everyone to wholeheartedly agree that your client obviously couldn't have been the culprit... but the trial continues and your client will still be found guilty if you don't figure out who really did it.
  • "Turnabout Samurai" from the first game featured the first major instance of this in the series. Phoenix proves beyond a reasonable doubt that his client is innocent by the end of the case's second day (due to proving that the real crime scene was somewhere Will Powers was unable to reach at the time of the murder, even if he hadn't been drugged with sleeping pills), but the trial continues for another day as Phoenix is explicitly tasked with finding the real culprit. Fail the trial the following day and Will Powers gets condemned anyways even though the court just agreed the previous day that he couldn’t kill the victim.
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations: In the final case, it's possible for Iris to get declared guilty if the player gets a game over due to penalties, even after Phoenix proves that only Maya or Godot could've killed Elise Deauxnim, who was revealed to actually be Misty Fey. Iris only gets a "Not Guilty" verdict after Godot is exposed as the murderer. Though this is a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation as the Judge is perfectly willing to give Iris a Not Guilty verdict and end the trial until Godot suggests that they continue the case to find the true killer.
  • Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: Case 3 has Machi, a frail fourteen-year-old, being suspected of killing Romein LeTouse with a 45-caliber pistol, the recoil from which should be enough to dislocate the shoulder of a grown man (and indeed, it did mess up the killer's arm), never mind a teenager, and neither of Machi's arms have been ripped out of their sockets. Even though this fact is enough to prove Machi didn't kill Romein, the court only gets convinced of Machi's innocence once Daryan's breakdown exposes him as the killer, which in turn only happens when Machi is convinced to testify against him. The creator later commented that he wanted the inconsistency to be because Daryan, a police detective was messing with evidence behind the scenes, but this didn't really come through in the final product.
  • Zig Zagged with Case 4 of Apollo Justice. On the one hand, they do work out who the guilty person is. On the other hand, there's no way to prove it. The good news is, it's a trial by jury, and the jurors have the sense to realize this trope doesn't apply and so will vote Not Guilty. The only way to get the Bad Ending is to have the juror you control vote Guilty against all reason, which results in a hung jury (because all the other jurors made the obvious choice), a mistrial, and Vera dying in the hospital. On the other hand, if Vera is declared Not Guilty, she survives and presumably can provide evidence against Kristoph herself.
  • Averted in the first case of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney; Phoenix gets an acquittal, but it's never definitively revealed who exactly beaned Aldente over the head. The final case, however, takes the trope in a weird direction: in what's supposed to be a witch trial, you eventually get everyone in court to accept the idea that witches and magic do not in fact exist, and later the supposed murder victim turns up alive, meaning none of the charges placed on the defendant have any basis at all. And yet, since the full truth hasn't come out yet, it's still possible to get her declared guilty and sentenced to death via Game Over. This even applies during the periods in which Layton, currently representing the prosecution, is presenting the evidence.
  • Dual Destinies averts this three times, but in each case it turns out to make things go From Bad to Worse because Phoenix just can't catch a break.
    • In the DLC case, Phoenix explicitly hinges his case defending Orla the orca on presenting the possibility of a human killer being present. He does this by proving that the orca wouldn't have been able to reach the victim (he was killed in her pool while it was drained and she wasn't inside) and presenting a potential murder weapon. The judge agrees that Orla couldn't have done it and declares her Not Guilty, complete with the thrown confetti... only for Simon Blackquill to arrest Orla's trainer, Sasha Buckler, as the prime suspect since she was the only one other than the victim who had the keycard necessary to enter the room, and if there was a human killer, it'd have to be her. In fact, this is the first episode to end with no one guilty; after Phoenix proves Sasha didn't do it, he also proves that the death wasn't a murder and Marlon Rimes, the person who accidentally caused it, had tried to save the victim.
    • In Case 4, exposing Yuri Cosmos's lies about the night of the murder, plus some last-minute decisive evidence, is enough for the judge to declare Solomon Starbuck to be innocent on the grounds that he was unconscious the whole time, despite the true killer being unknown. Players suspecting this to be too easy would be completely right; said evidence instead points at Athena, and case 5 is based around proving her innocence- not just in this particular murder, but the death of her mother Metis 7 years ago (albeit this last one is because Aura took hostages and demanded Athena be tried for the crime; even the Ace Attorney legal system usually isn't barmy enough to try a defendant for two crimes at once).
    • In case 5, the second Bad Ending has you prove both Athena and Simon innocent of Metis's murder but fail to catch the contradictions in Bobby Fullbright's testimony, thus ensuring the true killer escapes and is never found. It's considered a bad ending because a) Aura, Athena, and Simon will never get closure regarding Metis's death, and 2) Metis's murder was one of the two cases that catalyzed the 'Dark Age of the Law', and solving it is key to ending said Dark Age.
  • It's played straight in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice in the final case, since the case is pretty clearly a Kangaroo Court run by a despot who wants the defendant to be convicted to break the spirit of La Résistance and isn't afraid to abuse authority as the Queen of Khura'in to do so. Even when you do prove the defendant Not Guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt on account of him being dead when the crime took place, and prove the evidence against him in a previous case was fabricated, Ga'ran just writes a new law declaring standing up to her to be a crime punishable by summary execution. You only win the case by proving she never had a claim to the throne and thus all her laws are invalid.
  • Also averted in the third case of The Great Ace Attorney Adventures, where Ryunosuke successfully presents an alternative suspect to Magnus McGilded using the evidence at hand. Even though the prosecution immediately accuses Magnus of tampering with the evidence, something Ryunosuke himself asks to be investigated, the judge delivers an acquittal, reasoning that the prosecution has nothing to back up their claims, and should accept full responsibility for this mishap even if they were telling the truth. It's later revealed in case 5 that Magnus actually was guilty and did tamper with the evidence, though by this point he's already been murdered.
  • Ryunosuke eventually invokes this in case 3 of Resolve, as the true culprit is one of the rare few who's fine with the defendant getting off so long as they're not also found out in the process. Ryunosuke insists on delaying the not guilty verdict in order to bring the true killer to justice.
• In the first case of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Makoto Naegi is the first suspect. Because of the mechanics of a game over, Makoto gets voted out as the Blackened even after he's proven innocent. In fact, for the rest of the first and second games, the Player Character will be voted as the Blackened if you let your Influence Gauge run out by making mistakes, regardless of who is currently the suspect or if he's already been proven innocent, as in the first trial. Though the rules of the game mean that you can't end a trial without voting for a Blackened, and it doesn't really matter who's voted out if it isn't the true killer (no matter if it's the protagonist or whoever's currently being framed), since if someone gets away with murder, everyone but the killer dies.
• In Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane, for magic-related crimes, the public won't accept homicides going unsolved, so accused clients are guilty unless someone else's guilt can be proven.

Web Animation

• In Phoenix Wright: Devil's Attorney, underworld law explicitly states that the accused is guilty until someone else is proven guilty — which winds up a problem when condemning either the defendant or the real killer would start a war. in the end Phoenix, the Judge and the prosecutor have to work together to achieve a mistrial in order to avoid condemning an innocent and sparking a war. Since the true culprit is an artificial demon who's only a few months old, they end up judging that she's too young to prosecute, thus ending the case as a mistrial.
• Parodied in the Doobus Goobus sketch, "A Typical Ace Attorney Trial". Phoenix is successfully able to prove that Maya didn't commit genocide, but Miles and the judge argue that he still has to declare who the guilty party must be instead order to truly acquit her. He's eventually urged and begrudgingly decides to just randomly accuse Miles in order to get her off the hook. It should be noted that giving out false accusations is an actual tactic that has come into play throughout the series, albeit as a temporary measure to buy more time to find the real criminal as opposed to sincerely trying to get the sudden scapegoat jailed.
• Parodied in So This Is Basically... Ace Attorney, which uses the trope name almost word for word. Phoenix argues that his client can't have committed murder with a gun due to having been a five-month-old infant who couldn't even pick the gun up. (This is only narrowly an exaggeration of a case in Apollo Justice.) The Obviously Evil witness admits that Phoenix proved that it was impossible... and then, with absolutely no evidence, launches into a rant about how the baby somehow picked up the bullet and dropped it out of a tall building or a blimp so that it landed on the victim's head and killed her, before challenging Phoenix to disprove it. Upon hearing this, the judge happily declares the baby to be guilty.

Web Comics

• Parodied in the Awkward Zombie strip "Guilty Until Proven Guilty." The judge accepts that Athena's client couldn't have possibly committed the crime. However, since she did not bring up a possible suspect, the judge decides to declare Athena's client guilty anyway because "someone should go to jail."
• In El Goonish Shive, the Writer's Block is suspected to be the killer until the real killer is arrested.

Web Original

• Averted in "AI Makes An Ace Attorney Trial". The Judge decides that the mystery behind Big Chungus' murder may never be solved, but nevertheless drops all charges against Kirby, the defendant.

Western Animation

• Big City Greens: In the Season 4 episode "Green Trial", Cricket was accused of eating Nancy's strawberry cake. So Tilly tries to prove her brother's innocence. At the end of the episode, it was actually Grandpa Nick who ate the cake.
• The Fairly Oddparents episode "Inspection Detection" has Timmy prepping for Fairy Inspection Day, which comes at the wrong time when some of the items he wished for, by sheer coincidence, include items that were shoplifted from a local department store, and because he cannot explain where he got the stuff he wished for at the risk of losing Cosmo and Wanda (bonus points for failing a lie detector test), it leads his parents to suspect he is the shoplifter. Timmy knows he is innocent and suspects The Bully, Francis, is the real shoplifter when put in a Police Lineup with him and Chester and AJ and finds a stolen walkie-talkie in his pants, but his parents and the police are too stupid to believe him, leaving him no choice but to go on the run in order to prove his innocence. Near the end of the episode, Timmy successfully proves that Francis is the perpetrator, thanks to Cosmo shapeshifting into a security camera and catching Francis on video stealing a tub of lard.
• Family Guy: Everyone except Brian, who received a confession from the real killer, believes Peter killed Lois in "Stewie Kills Lois." This is because Peter admits he secretly wanted Lois dead after a fight, mentions taking out a life insurance policy on her right before she died, and photos of Lois being brutally murdered were discovered in his trash can. At his trial, Lois shows up alive and names Stewie her attacker, clearing Peter. It’s later revealed that this never happened and it was all part of a simulation made by Stewie at the end of the second part.
• Futurama: In the "The Lesser of Two Evils" episode, Fry and Leela automatically assume Flexo stole a giant atom. The two of them are only convinced of Flex's innocence once the atom was shown inside Bender's compartment, showing that Bender was the real thief.
• The Looney Tunes Show: In "Spread Those Wings and Fly," Bugs Bunny accuses Yosemite Sam of stealing his TV and calls the cops, which Sam denies. Once Bugs sees Daffy Duck stealing stuff while sleepwalking, and discovers all the other things Daffy stole, Bugs realizes that Sam innocent. Bugs apologizes to Sam by giving Sam his replacement Nobel Prize.
• Martha Speaks: In the "Martha Takes the Cake" episode, someone takes a large bite out of Alice's birthday cake and swallows a candle along with it. Initially, Martha is suspected until Nelson coughs up the candle, proving him as the perpetrator.
• Rick and Morty: In "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind", the Rick we follow throughout the show (Rick C-137) is arrested by the Citadel of Ricks, accused of murdering other Ricks. His portal gun history seems to corroborate this charge, and in any case his refusal to have anything to do with the Citadel of Ricks makes him suspect among the others. He's only let off the hook when he escapes and tracks down the actual culprit.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob throws a peanut at Clamu to wake her up in "The Smoking Peanut." When Clamu awakens, she goes on a crying rampage, and SpongeBob believes throwing his peanut is what made her upset. After SpongeBob is interrogated by the police, they end up arresting Patrick instead of him, resulting in SpongeBob confessing about the thrown peanut. Nobody gets convinced of his or Patrick's innocence until a zookeeper shows up and announces that Mr. Krabs upset Clamu by stealing her pearl, which is revealed to actually be an egg because it hatched immediately after it was returned.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Aside from her closest friends, all the characters believe Ahsoka Tano killed Letta Turmond, who was instructed by a Jedi to bomb the Jedi Temple. The characters also believe that Ahsoka is the mastermind behind the bombing. Once Anakin captures Barriss Offee in "The Wrong Jedi" and makes her confess that she was responsible for the crimes, everyone is finally convinced of Ahsoka's innocence. The experience of having virtually the entire Jedi Order turn against her without even giving her the benefit of the doubt for her years of loyal service or letting her speak out in her own defense caused her to quit.

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