Varying Competency Alibi

Tyr Anasazi: That's your reconstruction of the crime?
Capt. Dylan Hunt: As of now.
Tyr: I think that's the most pathetic and ill-planned excuse for an assassination I've ever seen, and I speak as one who has had some ... slight experience in these matters. ... Then there can be only one conclusion: I am innocent.
Hunt: Because you never would have gotten caught.
Tyr: Precisely.

— Andromeda, "All Great Neptune's Ocean"

Varying Competency Alibi is when a character is accused of doing something but they prove they're innocent when they're shown to be too competent or incompetent to do the deed. For being competent, it can be because they're too knowledgeable or skillful to commit it. For incompetency, it can be because they're not smart enough, they're not skilled enough, they're too nice, or they lack the courage to do it.

If a competent person gets accused and the thing they're being accused of doesn't match their skills, they'll feel insulted by the accusation and point out they would've done a much better job at it or covered up their tracks better, and then they would explain how they would have done it. They would also point out they would have better access to resources to help them do the job. For example, if they're accused of breaking and entering into a building, they would point out they wouldn't need to do that if they already have access (like a key or a key card) to enter. They might also have a reputation for being a perfectionist when it comes to their skills, and the idea of them doing something sloppy is a big indicator they could not have committed the act.

If an incompetent person gets accused, you can expect their friends or colleagues to defend them by pointing out their skills or knowledge aren't even close enough to match the thing they're being accused of, even if it comes off insulting to them. Even if they do have the capability to commit the act, their personality has to be taken into account; for example, they could be too nice, cowardly, lazy, or ditzy to be able to do it.

For examples that involve the character being both too competent and incompetent, the example has to explain why it can go both ways. For example, Bob is accused of murdering an innocent person by using a knife, but Bob points out if he was going to kill someone he would use a gun because he's an expert sharpshooter, and even if he did use a knife, he's mediocre with it and the victim was killed in a skilled matter.

When a character tries to take the heat for the culprit, it will automatically fail because others know of their capability and realize they couldn't have done it. The character would also be put to a test to see if they have the capability of doing the deed and they might accidentally reveal their skill.

Of course, there's always the possibility that they could be faking their competency to hide their true nature.

Subtrope of The Alibi. Sister Trope of If I Wanted You Dead.... See Disability Alibi, when a character is physically incapable of doing it due to being fully disabled or they have an injury. Contrast Too Qualified to Apply and Something Only They Would Say.

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"Too Competent" Examples:

Comic Books

• Supergirl: In "The Strange Revenge of Lena Luthor", A criminal gang tries to trick Supergirl into believing she has been captured and depowered by Lex Luthor. As soon as Kara realizes that she has merely been hypnotized into thinking she cannot use her powers, though, she realizes that Luthor CANNOT be responsible for her kidnapping. A genius like Luthor would take her powers away for real instead of resorting to silly hypnotic tricks.
• The Transformers: Punishment: Issue #4 ("The Killing Jar") has Optimus Prime investigating the deaths of several former Autobots and Decepticons who were killed by being roasted from the inside out. When the murder weapon is identified as Infernus Bullets (a type of ammo that enters the victim before igniting), the Firecons become the prime suspects. Optimus clears them by pointing out that the Firecons don't need Infernus Bullets to inflict the kind of damage done to the murder victims: their natural abilities allow them to do that, and the Infernus Bullets were actually an attempt to duplicate those powers.

Fan Works

• In Mystery of the Self-Loathing Loud, a Dark Fic based upon The Loud House, Lincoln finds a suicide note and concludes that one of his sisters is suicidal. He decides that it can't have been Lisa who wrote the note, since she has a very big vocabulary, and thus if she'd written it, it'd be in Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, yet instead, it's written in layman's English.
• Reality Is Fluid: Dul'krah investigates the sabotage of the USS Bajor's main deflector, and clears Professor Dukat offscreen despite the saboteur using Cardassian equipment because he thinks she's smart enough to "cover her tracks better than this". He was then able to confirm by consulting with Master Chief Kinlo that the Computer Virus used in the sabotage was in fact coded in a Bajoran style.
• With This Ring: The team is inclined to suspect Lex Luthor is behind many of the situations that they encounter, like the mutated guard animals in India. Paul repeatedly opposes their assertion, believing that Luthor would have been smarter about things like that, e.g. he wouldn't have allowed himself to be so easily connected to the facility.

Films — Live-Action

• Shooter: Bob Lee Swagger is framed for the attempted assassination of the United States President which resulted in the death of the Ethiopian Archbishop. One of the reasons FBI Agent Nick Memphis realizes Swagger isn't guilty is because Swagger is too good a sniper to miss the president at such a close range; if he were truly trying to kill the president, he would not have hit the archbishop by mistake. As it turns out, the archbishop was the target all along and the assassination attempt on the president was just the cover.

Literature

• The Corellian Trilogy: Mara Jade's role in passing on a message from the authors of the starbuster plot means that she could be a suspect for masterminding it, but the protagonists decide she's likely not guilty because the plotters have made plenty of mistakes and messed up their own plans, whereas Mara is "too much of a pro to let things get bungled."
• Dr. Gideon Fell: In The Hollow Man, Grimaud's caller claims to be a family friend, Pettis, so that the other members of the household will leave him undisturbed. During the investigation, the actual Pettis tries to argue that it couldn't have been him because he wouldn't have been foolish enough to give his real name. However, the police point out that they don't use logic like that to decide who to eliminate.
• The Dying Night: A paper of an important invention is copied and destroyed after the scientist's death. The sole coworker is the first suspect, but Dr. Wendell Urth points out that with the scientist's secrecy, he could have simply walked out with the papers. He had no reason to believe the scientist talked with anyone else, and if he knew otherwise, no reason to suspect he was taken seriously.
• In the novelization of Fantastic Voyage, the mission experiences several misadventures, each of which could have been an accident or sabotage. All but one of the specialists are eliminated as suspects because something went wrong in their respective areas of expertise that they could have sabotaged far more subtly and effectively.
• In The Legend of Sun Knight, all evidence seems to point to the Crown Prince as the culprit behind Roland's death by torture; the knight Sun caught disposing of the body had sworn fealty to him, the case is high-profile and probably involves royalty, and the newly undead Roland outright says he's the killer. But Sun realizes that if the hyper-competent Crown Prince was behind it, nobody would ever know; he's too savvy to make any of the killer's mistakes ^note Such as sending too many people to dispose of the body, trying to deflect blame by implicating some very powerful people in the Holy Temple, etc.. So he investigates further, and finds the real culprit: his idiot father of a King.
• Orc Eroica: In volume 1, young knight Judith arrests orc warrior Bash on suspicion of attacking a carriage earlier. Her CO, Houston, an expert at fighting orcs who faced Bash several times in the Great Offscreen War, quickly clears him of the attack, in no small part because he's sure that if Bash had done it, there wouldn't have been any witnesses left to report it. Houston also notes that Bash came quietly when he could have easily killed Judith's entire squad if he'd had a reason to resist arrest. And indeed, Bash had simply happened on the carriage when it was being attacked by a pack of bugbears and scared them off, then scared the passengers off as well by mistake.
• The Sleeping Beauty Killer: One of the arguments for her innocence that Casey puts forward to Laurie is that if she had killed Hunter, she wouldn't have been so sloppy about covering her tracks. Hunter was shot multiple times and there were two bullets in the walls, indicating the killer wasn't an experienced shooter. Casey points out she had firearms training and so wouldn't have missed or needed to fire so many bullets (although the prosecution argued that Casey was drunk and mentally unstable during the killing). She adds that she could've just told the police that she'd used the gun at a shooting range to explain why her fingerprints were on it, only insisting she never fired it because as far as she knew this was true. Casey also states that if she'd intended to drug herself to back up her story, she wouldn't have been so clumsy as to leave spare Rohypnol tablets in her own purse.
• In The Truth, Vimes believes Vetinari, a former Assassin, wouldn’t stab someone nearly to death, nor Bleed 'Em and Weep in the corridor. He’s completely right that both of these are “stupid facts” and the rest of the book is about him and William de Worde finding out how and why the Patrician was framed for the stabbing.
• Two-Minute Mysteries: One of the Still More Two-Minute Mysteries involves Dr. Haledjian judging a death accidental because "only a master murderer could have staged such a scene." The victim died of poisoning from the gas jet on her stove, but only one jet was on, and there was an untouched pocketbook on the couch containing several hundred dollars. Only someone with considerable motive and experience would be so careful to Make It Look Like an Accident.

Live-Action TV

• Andromeda: In "All Great Neptune's Ocean", Tyr Anasazi is accused in a Locked Room Mystery of assassinating the President of Castalia, whom he had earlier argued with over the deaths of an entire Nietzschean pride during the unification of the planet. When questioned by Captain Hunt, he defends himself against the accusation by listing off several ways he could have murdered the victim without risking getting caught: two involve poison and another two involve sabotage, and that's just as far as he got before Hunt agreed with him.
• The Blacklist: In Season 1 "The Good Samaritan", when Aram is suspected of being a mole because of money being traced to him, Red then forces him to make a secure money transfer with him encrypting it three times over and them realizing he would never be stupid enough to leave a paper trail.
• Boston Legal: In the episode "Trial of the Century" Denny Crane and Alan Shore have to defend two boys who have been accused of killing their abusive father. One of the witnesses is their therapist, who they had told about their fantasies about killing their father, which he felt they were serious about. Denny then asked the therapist if the boys were intelligent. When the therapist responded that the boys struck him as intelligent, Denny argued that it didn't make sense for them to do something as stupid as telling people that they wanted to kill their father if they were planning on actually doing it.
• Castle:
  • In the series premiere, "Flowers for Your Grave", a killer poses the bodies of his victims to recreate scenes from Richard Castle's murder mystery novels. This leads Castle himself to join the investigation as a consultant — and he notices certain mistakes the killer made in recreating the scenes. (A woman's nude body is covered in rose petals, but using the wrong rose variety; a woman stabbed through the heart and left floating in a pool is wearing the wrong color dress; etc.) Castle becomes convinced that the prime suspect — Kyle Cabot, an obsessive Castle fan with a mental illness — can't be the killer, in part because an obsessive fan would be the last person to make those kinds of mistakes. He's correct. This winds up being a case of Serial Killings, Specific Target, and the real killer copied from Castle's novels purely to frame Cabot.
  • "Murder, He Wrote" sees Castle and Beckett end up in a Busman's Holiday while vacationing in the Hamptons when a man winds up wandering into Castle's swimming pool and dying. One of the suspects is a neighbor with reputed mob ties. Castle invites him to dinner in an attempt to question him and see if he was involved. But Castle lacks subtlety, and the man is offended...that Castle believes he was involved in such an amateur hit. He further claims that if he'd done it, they would have Never Found the Body, and leaves with the admonition, "Don't make me want to do a demonstration."
• Cluedo (Australian version): In one episode, Detective Bogong questions Colonel Mustard about a bomb found attached to the engine of the victim's car. Mustard claims that he didn't set it, as he wouldn't do such an amateur job. Bogong replies that he might... if he didn't want it to be recognised as his work.
• CSI: NY: In "DOA for a Day", a judge is murdered, then the main suspect is alleged to have been killed with a Navy Seal's knife which is found at the crime scene. The judge's son, who is a former Seal, calls the detectives out for suspecting him because, while admitting that he is capable and would've done it if he'd known who killed his father:
  Russ: C'mon, leaving my knife behind? That's just sloppy. And if you know anything about Navy Seals, we're not sloppy.
• In the Russian series Deadly Force, a criminal attempts to frame a secretary for stealing some important documents. Back in 2000, a regular Russian criminal didn't know how to make a copy of a document, but the secretary knew, so she would have done so instead of taking the originals.
• Elementary:
  • In one episode, Detective Hill is framed for murder by his criminal brother Andre, who leaves behind an Orgy of Evidence pointing to Hill's guilt, including placing the gun Andre used to shoot his victim inside of an air vent in Hill's home where the forensics team will easily find it. After hearing the situation, Sherlock Holmes dismisses Hill as a suspect because even if he had motive and opportunity Sherlock knows that Hill would not be so incompetent as to hide the murder weapon inside of his own home. (Sherlock admits that Hill could make mistakes and leave evidence if he was the murderer, but the murder weapon being found in his own home is just one mistake too many.)
  • "Alma Matters" revolves around Sherlock's estranged father Morland trying to reconnect with him. Sherlock learns that the reason for this sudden turnaround is because Morland (at one point at least) suspected that Sherlock was the one trying to kill him. Sherlock delivers a blistering tirade to his father, capping it off with this line:
    "Oh, and if you have any lingering doubts, here's how you can be certain I'm not the one who tried to kill you - you are alive."
• Game of Thrones: One of the arguments used by Tyrion after he's accused of the assassination of King Joffrey is that if he had done it, he would have had a fall guy prepared and he certainly wouldn't have gotten caught with the murder weapon. Though he only argues this in private to Jaime, who already believes he's innocent. The actual trial is too much of a Kangaroo Court for him to even bother.
• How to Get Away with Murder: In an early episode, the Keating Five defend a wealthy hunter accused of murdering his wife. The victim was stabbed multiple times and the crime scene was a mess, so the team uses the defense that, being an experienced hunter, their client would've never been so sloppy. Case in point, he was much neater when he killed his first wife!
• In Law & Order episode "Embedded", a newspaper reporter is shot but survives the attack. The suspect, Sergeant George Meacham, says that if he had shot the reporter, the reporter would be dead.
• The 1990s series McCallum had a drug supply clerk treating illegal refugees, believing that doctors just went down a list of symptoms and prescribed the appropriate drug. As a result, people start turning up on McCallum's autopsy table. At one point the police arrest a doctor, but McCallum argues against him being a suspect as he's too competent.
• Phoenix (1992). The criminals who plant the bomb are amateurs who use a set-up so crude the forensic scientist is surprised they didn't blow themselves up driving there. This is foreshadowed early in the investigation when an ex-IRA terrorist is questioned as a suspect, and he says he'd never use a car bomb for an open area like that, but a mortar shell fired from the next street.
• Starsky & Hutch: One episode has the titular duo attacked by a pair of killers, leaving one innocent bystander dead. While Investigating, they learn that a notorious pair of contract killers was in town, but "if it were them, they wouldn't have missed." It was them, the "innocent bystander" was their actual target.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • "A Man Alone": After Odo is framed for the murder of a black marketeer named Ibudan in one of Quark's holosuites, Kira points out in his defense that Odo has been nothing but forthcoming about his enmity towards the Asshole Victim, and that if he'd done it, he could easily have covered it up.
  • The plot of "Improbable Cause" is set off when somebody bombs Garak's clothing shop. When Odo questions Garak on who might want him dead, he suggests Major Kira. Odo scoffs at this—Kira being deservedly proud of her skills at bombmaking in La Résistance, she wouldn't have missed if she'd tried to kill Garak—and tells him to take the investigation seriously. A good call, given that the bomber turns out to be Garak himself.
    Garak: I am serious: I don't think she likes me.
    Odo: She doesn't. But if she wanted you dead, you would be.
    Garak: You do have a point.

Video Games

• Escape from Monkey Island: The sheriff of Lucre Island doesn't believe Guybrush's claim to have been framed for bank robbery by Pegnose Pete, because he thinks that if Pete were going to rob the bank, he'd be in and out in the middle of the night, using a clever system of weights and pulleys to open the vault, with no one any the wiser, not just barging in waving a pistol.

Visual Novels

• Danganronpa:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: During the trial for the murder of Chihiro, Byakuya proposes that Toko is the murderer due to her split personality in the form of Genocide Jack on account of the fact that Chihiro's body was mounted up hanging. However, Makoto is able to figure out that Genocide Jack is innocent in this due to how precise and specific she is with her killings as she kills with specially-made scissors and hangs her victims with said scissors while Chihiro was bludgeoned to death and hung using a power cord, along with the fact that Genocide Jack only kills men. Chihiro turns out to be a boy, but Genocide Jack didn't know that.
  • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: Inverted. One of the pieces of evidence that points to Mikan's guilt is the fact that her assessment of Ibuki's cause of death was hanging, to hide the fact the victim had been strangled to death. However, when it becomes apparent the victim wasn't hanged, Mikan tries defending herself by explaining she just made a mistake, only for Nagito to point out that she's the Ultimate Nurse and even a drunk med student would have been able to tell the difference.

Western Animation

• Mission Hill: When Kevin is caught masturbating in a bathroom by two bullies from school, he burns the magazine he was reading, which sets fire to the building and he nearly dies. The two bullies are charged with attempted murder. Before Kevin comes clean at the trial, their public defender, after declining to question Kevin at all, makes his closing statement that they would have succeeded in killing Kevin.
  "Attempted murder?" Ha! I put forth that if these two ruthless thugs had wanted to kill this young man, he'd be dead. I mean look at them, they're scum.
• The Owl House: Implied. In "Hollow Mind", Luz and Hunter view Belos' memories and witness the atrocities he's committed. In denial, Hunter tries to justify it, but his logic gets increasingly thin, with him trying to explain Belos' blatant attempt at murdering several witches as being merely him trying to perfect sigil magic. However, it's clear they both know that there is no way someone as smart as Belos would make such a mistake if murder wasn't the goal.

"Too Incompetent" Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In the Golgo 13 story "Room 909", Golgo gets off on this even though he really did do it. The police have all the physical evidence they need to get an arrest warrant, but when they run the numbers on the assassination, they find that the shot was so difficult (a perfect headshot, from half a kilometer away, through an alleyway less than a meter wide, with the target obscured by window glare, and a strong crosswind) that they'd never get a jury to believe that anybody could make that shot. So they have to let him go.

Comic Books

• "Strangers at the Heart's Core": After capturing the Visitors, Supergirl ponders that they cannot be behind the whole scheme, since "they aren't clever enough even to think of such an idea" as building a device that can alter or destroy anything by creating a holographic duplicate.
• Suicide Squad (2021): In #13, the Squad pins and interrogates Owlman in an attempt to access his files on the Crime Syndicate. Owlman (who's an evil Batman) laughs in their face that they thought he even knew how to use a computer. Culebra instead possesses him in an attempt to get said information.
  Owlman: That thing's a television. What am I, a tech-bro?
  Culebra: Oh my god... ...their Batman's a dumbass?!

Films — Live-Action

• Black Panther: Ulysses Klaue exploits this to throw off any pursuit while he and Erik Stevens rob the Museum of Great Britain of its vibranium items. After gunning down all of the nearby guards, Klaue lets one run for a few moments, then shoots him anyway.
  Erik: Bro, why you ain't just shoot him right here?
  Klaue: Because it's better to leave the crime scene more spread out. Makes us look like amateurs.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: When Harry is accused of putting his name in the Goblet despite the age line, Mad-Eye Moody counters that it would take a powerful Confundius charm to pull it off, "well beyond the talents of a fourth-year." Mad-Eye himself, or rather Barty Crouch, Jr. masquerading as him, put Harry's name in as part of Voldemort's plot.
• Jack Reacher: A sniper shoots several seemingly random people and former Army sniper James Barr is accused. One of Jack Reacher's problems with James Barr's guilt is that while Barr was a decent sniper, from the place where the shooter fired the shots, only someone with exceptional skill even for a sniper could have successfully made the shots. Also, a better position that was much more in line with the tactics that Barr was taught was easily available, and the only missed shot conveniently preserved the bullet and allowed it to be tied to Barr. It turns out that not only was James Barr framed, but the shooter deliberately chose the position to make sure he could kill a specific person and then hide it among the "random" spree.
• Muppets Most Wanted: At the end of the "Interrogation Song", Sam and Jean Pierre realize the Muppets are too stupid to be behind the robberies.
  Jean Pierre: They're incapable of being culpable.
• Shooter supplies both an example of this and an example of "too competent" in the same scene. Agent Nick Memphis, right after he mentions that Bob Lee Swagger is too good of a sniper to not hit the President of the United States if that is the guy he was aiming for with the conditions at the moment of the shooting, mentions that every bit of forensics data of the Orgy of Evidence was being delivered to the FBI within minutes of the shooting, while the manhunt for Swagger was only just starting and the crime scene was only beginning to be cordoned off, let alone being searched for evidence. So the only people who could have given the evidence were the ones who wanted to frame Swagger.
  Agent Memphis: We [the FBI] are not that fast.

Literature

• Alex Cross novel Cross the Line: A subplot involves the deaths of Police Captain Tommy McGrath and his girlfriend Edita. The main suspect is disgraced cop Terry Howard, but Cross notes that Howard was never a particularly good shot, and the killing shots were done with near-perfect precision. Indeed, the real perpetrator is a competitive shooter with perfect scores.
• The Corellian Trilogy: When Thrackan Sal-Solo hears that the Drall repulsor has been activated, he finds it unbelievable that the Drallists could have done it since they are the very dregs of society and couldn't have had the technical skills needed. Which leads him to suspect who really did...
• In The Green Mile, no one notices until late in the book that John Coffey cannot tie his own shoes... but whoever committed the murder he's accused of had to be good at tying knots.
• Harry Potter:
  • In Chamber of Secrets, Filch is convinced that Harry must have attacked Mrs. Norris, but Dumbledore counters that a student would not have the ability to Petrify anyone. Later in the same book, the real culprit talks about framing Hagrid for the crime the first time they opened the Chamber, and how surprised they were when nobody utilized this trope to point out that Hagrid could never have the skills necessary to find it.
  • In Goblet of Fire, a dozen Ministry wizards find Harry, Ron, and Hermione standing in the same area where the Dark Mark was cast. When Mr. Crouch accuses them of conjuring it, the others point out that a couple of kids couldn't have cast a spell like that. Unfortunately averted in Winky's case, though she was even less likely to have done it, due to her low standing as a house-elf.
• In Jack Reacher novel One Shot, a sniper shoots several seemingly random people and former Army sniper James Barr is accused. One of Jack Reacher's problems with James Barr's guilt is that while Barr was a decent sniper, the killings were done by a man with exceptional skill. The shots were from a rather awkward position when a better one was available, and the only miss conveniently preserved the bullet. It turns out that not only was James Barr framed, but the shooter deliberately chose the position not to kill random people but a specific person to hide among a random spree.
• During the second My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! novel, Catarina was accused by a group of girls of bullying lower-class students such as Maria. She is excoriated by the Student Council, her friends spring to her defense by pointing out that she's far too dense to carry out the coordinated bullying she's been accused of. Catarina is glad that they're defending her, but she can't shake the feeling that something is off, because she's too dense to realize that she's being dealt a Stealth Insult.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades:
  • When the faculty of Kimberly Magic Academy discuss the disappearance of Professor Darius Grenville in volume 2, the possibility that a student may have killed him is suggested, and then immediately discarded as impossible: as Headmistress Esmeralda puts it, "If, by some chance, a student did kill him, that would mean Darius was never fit to be a Kimberly instructor." This means that the prime suspects are the other instructors. This was exactly what the killer, first-year student Oliver Horn, wants them to think—and in their defense it indeed wouldn't have been possible if he didn't have access to his mother's Ghost Memory.
  • Inverted in volume 6. Esmeralda considers Student Council President Alvin Godfrey a potential suspect in the murder of Enrico Forghieri, because he's one of the only students she thinks is even physically capable of killing a Kimberly professor, though she agrees that he has no motive. She tells him to consider it a compliment.
  • Subverted later in volume 6 when Esmeralda interrogates Oliver and Pete. She says up front that there's no possible way that two second-years were even physically capable of killing Enrico Forghieri; she instead thinks that, having visited Forghieri's laboratory,^note Technically, Pete was kidnapped by Forghieri, who wanted to make him his apprentice, and Oliver and Nanao pursued them to his laboratory. they might have unintentionally leaked information to the assassins and could help her identify them. Ironically, Oliver really IS the killer, and spends the entire scene sweating bullets before Nanao rescues them both.
• Towards Zero: Amateur Sleuth Angus MacWhirter tells everyone that he saw a man swimming across the creek and climbing into the victim's house using a rope. One of the suspects, Ted Latrimer, claims that he can't be the killer because he can't swim. Superintendent Battle verifies his claim by throwing him into the ocean and rescuing him when he almost drowns.

Live-Action TV

• The Boys: When Homelander informs the rest of the Seven that he believes Hughie is sabotaging the group, Starlight, who is dating Hughie, argues that he couldn't be able to pull off something like that on his own. Homelander agrees and accuses Starlight of helping him.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Played for Laughs when Holt's Thanksgiving pie was stolen.
  Holt: Whoever did this thought it through.
  Rosa: In other words it wasn't Scully and Hitchcock.
• CSI: NY: In "Reignited", a wannabe firefighter is suspected of murder by arson, but it is discovered that he has some mental challenges that wouldn't have enabled him to come up with the elaborate trap that was laid. Mac tells Flack to let the man go because "he's a buff, not smart enough to have pulled this off."
• Death in Paradise: In "La Murder Le Diablé", the killer goes to great lengths to frame an alcoholic who suffers from blackouts when he drinks. The frame is solid except for one detail. To ensure the two crimes were linked, the criminals left a message written in the first victim's lipstick at both crime scenes. However, the man the killer attempted to frame was illiterate and could not have written the messages.
• Full House: In "Grand Gift Auto," Joey purchases DJ a car as a birthday present, only for a cop to show up and announce that it's actually a stolen vehicle. She's ready to arrest him until the rest of the household shows her Joey's bedroom and point out all of his Manchild belongings, saying he's too innocent and naive to be a crook. While this convinces the officer of Joey's innocence, it ends up hurting his feelings because he thinks everyone considers him "the family joke."
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: In one episode, Hercules tries questioning a mook for information, and the mook claims not to know the answer, then pleads with Hercules to believe him. Herc replies that he does, because the mook "Doesn't seem smart enough to play dumb."
• Married... with Children: In the season 4 episode, "Buck Saves the Day," Marcy accuses Kelly of cheating due to her suspiciously consistent string of wins in their game of poker. Peggy points out that Kelly is not at all smart enough to be able to cheat like that. Marcy then reluctantly concedes the point, though she keeps regarding Kelly with suspicion throughout the rest of the episode. It turns out that Kelly had actually cheated, but was never caught because of that "too incompetent" alibi Peggy gave.
  Peggy: Marcy, think about it. If my daughter were a cheat, she wouldn't be failing high school.
  Kelly: Thanks, Mom!
• Monk: In Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show, a murder took place next to an emergency exit, yet the murderer didn't use it—he went through several other rooms, running the risk of being seen. The only possible reason for this is that the murderer saw—and could read—a sign which warns that the emergency exit would activate an alarm. Yet the main suspect can't read English, so he can't be the murderer.
• Only Murders in the Building:
  • In the second season, Detective Kreps comes under suspicion of being Bunny's killer who framed Mabel for it. Mabel tells him to his face that she doesn't believe in this theory because he wouldn't be capable of pulling off that sort of masterpiece.
  • Detective Williams (or more accurately, Detective Kreps pretending to be Williams) sends a text to Charles saying she's the only one in the NYPD who thinks he, Oliver, and Mabel are innocent, but only because she thinks they're too dumb to organize a murder plot.
• Peacemaker (2022): In "Best Friends, For Never", when the team is trying to figure out how Annie Sturphausen, the woman who attacked Peacemaker, learned about their secret operation, Peacemaker accuses Economos of tipping her off. Harcourt defends Economos by saying he couldn't have done it, which Economos is grateful to her for, but she continues and states "he's too big of a pussy to betray us", which dejects him. It turns out Peacemaker brought the dossier of the mission inside Annie's apartment and she read it.
• Red Dwarf: In "Justice", Rimmer is accused by a Justice Computer on a penal colony station of 1167 counts of second-degree murder thanks to his failure to fix the drive plate which led to a radiation leak on Red Dwarf as well as his subconscious guilt on the matter. Kryten eventually manages to get the Justice Computer to let Rimmer go by convincing it that he was such an obviously incompetent worker that the real blame should lie on whoever got him to do the job in the first place. Rimmer even helped unwittingly back the argument of his own stupidity by repeatedly trying to object to his own defense for these "accusations".
  Kryten: Who would permit this man — this joke of a man, this man who could not outwit a used teabag — to be in a position where he might endanger the entire crew? Who? Only a yoghurt. This man is not guilty of manslaughter. He is only guilty of being Arnold J. Rimmer. That is his crime. It is also his punishment. Defence rests.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Babel", Odo figures out Quark is up to something because he lies about Rom fixing the replicator when Rom "couldn't repair a straw if it were bent." This is a bit of Early-Installment Weirdness: Rom is later established to be quite a good engineer.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: In Season 3 "Baggage", when Mr. Moseby catches London and Nia throwing a crazy party at the Tipton without his permission, Nia tries to throw London under the bus by claiming she's the one responsible for the party. Unfortunately, she forgets that she's trying to blame it on London, and after London said something stupid, Moseby immediately lampshades it.
  Nia: Ok, are you going to believe me or the girl here who thinks I'm a soccer team?
  Moseby: Well, your track record does speak for itself.
  London: Ooh! You run track? I tried that once. But then they put little fences in front of me and I kept tripping. Plus, the other girls wouldn't wait for me.
  Moseby: You still expect me to believe London was the mastermind behind all this?
  Nia: Yeah, that was a tough sell.

Theatre

• We Are the Tigers: Near the end of the show, Reese confesses to accidentally killing Clark, but denies having killed Farrah and Chess. Cairo wonders if maybe this is a ploy to throw everyone off, which Reese denies.
  Reese: Cairo, please, I'm not that smart.
  Cairo: Or maybe that's all been an act!
  Kate: Cairo, please, she's not that smart.
  Reese: Hey!

Video Games

• Mass Effect 2: Exploited during Mordin's recruitment mission. Everyone is convinced that humans are responsible for the plague because they're the only ones not affected. The vorcha are unaffected too, but everyone brushes them off because they're immune to everything and because they're generally considered little more than talking vermin who don't have the technical knowledge to unleash something like that. Normally that assessment would be correct, but no one considered that the vorcha might get outside help. Mordin, meanwhile, had already ruled out humans, as his expertise with bioweapons let him swiftly figure out that the virus was far too complex to have been designed by any but the most advanced groups, and he already suspects the true culprits, the Collectors.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Invoked by the Sith Inquisitor's master, Lord Zash. In the Dromund Kaas story, she plots to murder her rival Darth Skotia—killing fellow Sith to advance being ostensibly illegal but tacitly encouraged if you can avoid getting caught. She sends the Inquisitor to commit the assassination while making sure she's seen at a party held by Darth Acina. The Inquisitor themself has no alibi, but as they're only an apprentice fresh from the Sith Academy, it shouldn't be physically possible for them to kill a full-fledged Dark Lord.

Visual Novels

• Happens multiple times in Ace Attorney, only to be subverted when the defense or the prosecution proves how a suspect still could have committed the crime:
  • A suspect in Case 1-3 argues that she lacked the physical strength necessary to wield the murder weapon, a large spear. This is proven to be true. Except the spear wasn't the murder weapon.
  • In Case 3-1, Phoenix points out that Dahlia couldn't have created the special kind of poison used in an attempted murder because she studies literature. Mia counters that Dahlia was dating a pharmacology student at the time. She didn't need to know how to create the poison. She simply needed to know someone who did.
  • Both Apollo and Ema spend a significant amount of time in Case 4-3 building up arguments around the beliefs that 1) Lamiroir witnessed the murder and 2) Machi committed the crime a certain way because he was blind. Since they didn't ask, Klavier plays along for a while before confirming that they're both wrong. Machi can see just fine and Lamiroir is the one who is blind.
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: No one believes Gonta could be Miu's killer as he's both a Nice Guy and not very intelligent, while the scheme to kill Miu required careful planning while accounting for the bizarre elements of the Neo World Program. It turns out that Gonta is indeed the killer, but the scheme was devised by Kokichi who had manipulated Gonta into carrying it out.

Web Videos

• While Gordon Freeman of Freeman's Mind is initially terrified of being arrested for all the soldiers he's mowed down trying to escape Black Mesa, he ultimately decides that the more he kills the less likely he is to get convicted. How are you going to convince a jury that a doctor of theoretical physics with no firearms experience or criminal history managed to kill a small army of soldiers?
• In Episode 6 of Sword Art Online Abridged, Kirito convinces Yolko and Kains that it was impossible for Schmitt to have murdered Griselda by arguing that there was no way he would have been able to defeat her in combat, much to the annoyance of the man he's defending.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: In "Read My Lips", Batman tricks Scarface into believing that one of Scarface's henchmen betrayed him, in order to get Scarface riled up. Rhino, the Dumb Muscle of the henchmen, protests that it wasn't him who betrayed Scarface. Scarface says he knows it wasn't Rhino because Rhino is too stupid to pull off a scheme like that. Rhino takes this as a compliment. Batman did get the clue from a screw-up on Rhino's part, but accuses the Ventriloquist to further sow discord.
  Scarface: Which one o' you louses is it?
  Rhino: It ain't me, boss!
  Scarface: I know it ain't you, Rhino! You're too stupid to be a traitor.
  Rhino: Uh, thanks, boss.
• Central Park: In Season 3 "A Matter of Life and Boeuf", when a valuable steak is stolen at Bitsy's hotel restaurant, it becomes a whodunnit mystery and everyone is a suspect. Molly points out it can't be Cole because he's too bad at being bad. Cole tries to prove he can be bad by spilling over a pepper shaker and then instantly regretting it, proving Molly's point. When Shampagne is accused of eating the steak, Cole tries Taking the Heat to save Shampagne, but nobody buys it at all due to him being too innocent.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In the Pilot Movie, "House of Bloo's", Terrence locks Mac up in the closet long enough for him to adopt out Bloo, with Mac arriving too late to stop it. He notes however that Terrence is too stupid to come up with a plan this complex, therefore, Terrence must be receiving instructions from someone who wants to get rid of Bloo. Cue everyone figuring out it's Duchess.
• Futurama: In "Insane in the Mainframe", Fry and Bender are falsely accused of bank robbery, but won't tell on the actual culprit for fear of his retribution. Their lawyer, the incompetent Hyper-Chicken, asks that they be declared innocent by reason of insanity... and presents the fact that they hired him to represent them as proof. This actually works, getting them sent to a robot insane asylum.
• The Great North: In Season 2 "Skidmark Holmes Adventure", when someone stole Judy's pizza and replaces it with soiled underwear at her murder mystery party, everyone in the room has to show their underwater to prove they didn't do it. When Russell reveals he's not wearing underwear because he has a "clinically claustrophobia wiener", Henry speaks up and says that Russell is too much of a doof to steal the pizza.
• King of the Hill: In "Lupe's Revenge", Peggy accidentally kidnaps a Mexican girl while taking her class on a field trip to Mexico and gets arrested. At the trial, Hank convinces the court to let her testify in Spanish, knowing she'd never pass up a chance to demonstrate her "fluency". The jury concludes that her grasp of the language is so bad, the incident had to have been a misunderstanding, and she's declared not guilty.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "MMMystery on the Friendship Express", when someone takes a huge bite from a special cake intended for a baking contest, Pinkie Pie accuse several rival bakers of doing the deed and invents bizarre fantasies to explain how they supposedly did it. She claims Donut Joe is actually the suave super-spy Con Mane, and destroyed her cake with a laser security system; Twilight Sparkle shoots this down by pointing out that Joe is too "big, gruff, and messy" to possibly be the "sleek, stealthy Con Mane". Then Pinkie claims Mulia Mild is actually a ninja who sliced the cake up with her sword; Twilight just points out that Mulia is far too old and timid to be a ninja.
• The Owl House: Inverted. In "I Was a Teenage Abomination", Willow cheats on her Abominations 101 homework by having Luz pretend to be an Abomination in front of the teacher. However, Amity quickly realizes something isn't right when Willow is given her top student badge, as she knows the other witch is extremely unskilled in Abominations and couldn't possibly have made something that good only hours after Amity saw the pile of goo that was her real homework.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Mojo Jojo, despite his intelligence, is such a poor planner that when the girls try to figure out who is behind a string of robberies in "Something's a Ms.", they rule him out as a suspect because the robberies were too well-planned out.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Sideshow Bob is on trial for committing electoral fraud to get himself elected mayor of Springfield. Bart and Lisa accuse Bob of not being the real mastermind behind the fraud, pinning it instead on Pompous Political Pundit Birch Barlow, with Bob being little more than Barlow's lackey. This, of course, was just a ruse to get Bob to confess, as his ego wouldn't allow him to be seen as incompetent.
  • In the episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)", the police believe Homer to be the one to shoot him due to Homer's name being the only thing coming out of Mr. Burns's mouth when he wakes up. However, once Burns regains his memory, he confirms that Homer lacks the skill or mental capacity to be capable of shooting him.
• What's New, Scooby-Doo?: In "Lights! Camera! Mayhem!", the phantom that has been terrorizing a movie set is unmasked and revealed to be the movie's director, Vincent Wong. When actor Roderick Kingston asks why the gang didn't suspect film's lead actor Chip Hernandez, Jr., Velma responds that Chip lacked any of the skills needed to pull off a good "Scooby-Doo" Hoax.

Both Examples

Comic Books

• An issue of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel) has the Joe team sneak into an enemy base to rescue a kidnapped scientist. They get discovered and have to fight their way out. After they escape, one of the surviving guards correctly determines their nationality from their competency:
  Guard 1: The Americans got away.
  Guard 2: How do you know they're Americans?
  Guard 1: Because if they were British SAS, we would be dead and if they were Israeli Mossad, we still wouldn't know they were here. No one else comes as close.

Video Games

• In Neverwinter Nights 2, during the Ember Trial opportunities for both show up.
  • If testimony comes up that you had beheaded someone in a single sword swing, a sufficiently intelligent character can point out that such a feat requires strength. If the player character has low strength (such as a Wizard or Rogue), this strengthens your case that you were framed. Be cautious, however: if you do have sufficient strength it instead becomes evidence against you.

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