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Mistaken for Evidence
- 89 statements
- 16 feature instances
- 17 referencing feature instances
| Mistaken for Evidence | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence | comment |
You've apprehended a suspect. You have a video of him carrying a large plastic bag filled with a suspicious-looking white powder. This must be the easiest Open-and-Shut Case you've seen all year. In fact, the bag of powder has just come back from the lab identified as... cake mix? This is a common way to throw a plot twist into a Forensic Drama or Police Procedural - a crucial piece of evidence has been identified as some object, looks like said object, and everybody has been assuming it's that object. Then it suddenly turns out to be something completely different, which completely blows the whole case apart. It may also be used for comedy, when the true identity of the piece of evidence is absurd and/or ironic. Similar to the Red Herring, only this is caused by a mistake on the part of the investigators, as opposed to deliberate misdirection by suspects or witnesses. Sometimes overlaps with A Bloody Mess, for which The Ketchup Test might be used for The Reveal. If the object in question is a powder or liquid, the Fingertip Drug Analysis may be used instead. More tragic examples of this trope involving imitation weapons may fit better under Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!. |
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Dropped link to ExcessiveEvilEyeshadow: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to FingertipDrugAnalysis: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Mistaken for Evidence | isPartOf |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_1323d771 | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_1323d771 | comment |
Manhunt: Unabomber: the FBI is aware that many agents get bogged down on chasing phantom leads, referring to the "stamp guy" who is convinced he can track Unabomber down based on the stamps he used, and the team initially thinking a guy they arrested had to be him, because of his PURE WOOD Knuckle Tattoos. | |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_135f419b | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_135f419b | comment |
In Dunk, In chapter 34, while the police are searching Chad's house after he was framed for supplying drugs, they find money he was making while working and mistake it for drug money. His name is cleared by his tenant, luckily. | |
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| Dunk | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_1367b767 | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_1367b767 | comment |
In Wilt, after Henry Wilt is accused of murdering his wife, the police search his house and find a lot of what looks like damning evidence, including a cleaver he had used to open a can of red lead. | |
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| Wilt | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_137d9b24 | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_137d9b24 | comment |
In the Raising the Bar episode "Is There a Doctor in the House", Kellerman's client is arrested after the police find a large amount of white powder in her car. It's laundry detergent, as she was on her way to the laundromat. The cop who arrested her is humiliated and fraudulently charges her with selling a "beat bag". | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_137d9b24 | featureApplicability |
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| Raising the Bar | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_2e621178 | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_2e621178 | comment |
In The Good Wife one of Alicia's clients pulls the cake mix ruse. His motive was to root out which of his lawyers was informing on him. The time frame points to Alicia, but she isn't the snitch (at the time, her phone was tapped by the NSA, which was passing information to the DEA). | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_2e621178 | featureApplicability |
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| The Good Wife | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_468bebb0 | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_468bebb0 | comment |
In the Discworld novel Feet of Clay a group of "respectable citizens" discover Vimes drunk and unconscious at his desk with a bag of suspicious white power in his drawer... and the Patrician has been recently poisoned with arsenic. Vimes wakes up and quickly eats the evidence. It was just sugar, he hid the actual arsenic that had been planted in his desk to frame him and then faked being drunk. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_468bebb0 | featureApplicability |
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| Discworld | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_4ca7cf84 | type |
Mistaken for Evidence | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_4ca7cf84 | comment |
Once on Matlock, Matlock and Tyler (his private investigator) were investigating a person who had some strange powdery substance delivered to his house every day. Tyler was working undercover as a chauffeur. They met late at night in a dark alleyway for Ben to get a sample for testing. Then the cops came and busted Matlock, since it was a known drug trafficking hangout. Matlock protested his innocence but was arrested. The cops tested the powder - it was a diet formula. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_4ca7cf84 | featureApplicability |
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| Matlock | hasFeature |
Mistaken for Evidence / int_4ca7cf84 | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_6ab76f31 | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_6ab76f31 | comment |
Most (if not all) of the drama in My Cousin Vinny happens because the two accused teens mistakes the police arresting them as suspects in a murder for them being arrested for shoplifting from the same store and when the charges are finally mentioned, one of them repeatedly asks "I shot the clerk?" and the cops mistake it for a confession. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_6ab76f31 | featureApplicability |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_6ab76f31 | featureConfidence |
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| My Cousin Vinny | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_776dc40a | type |
Mistaken for Evidence | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_776dc40a | comment |
Subverted in Starsky & Hutch. One of the plot points is cocaine that drug dogs can't detect; when the title characters bring it in, they're told they've found powdered sugar. It's not. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_776dc40a | featureApplicability |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_776dc40a | featureConfidence |
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| Starsky & Hutch | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_786a5a97 | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_786a5a97 | comment |
Chicago P.D.: Played with in one episode where bloodstained clothing turns up during a search of an apartment belonging to a person of interest in a murder investigation, which is a false alarm but still ends up being an important lead. The lab identifies it as animal blood, mostly from pigs and cows, which the team correctly guess to mean that their person of interest probably worked at a nearby meat-packing plant. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_786a5a97 | featureApplicability |
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| Chicago P.D. | hasFeature |
Mistaken for Evidence / int_786a5a97 | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_80ece066 | type |
Mistaken for Evidence | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_80ece066 | comment |
In The Teenage Worrier's Panick Diary, Letty discovers that her boyfriend Basil is actually a criminal who burgled her best friend's house. She then remembers that he left a suitcase at her house. When she opens it, it contains what she thinks is rifles, along with a bag of mysterious white powder. When she finally calls the police a week later (because she had flu and was too sick to do anything about it) they tell her she will not be charged because the "guns" and "drugs" were actually golf clubs and soap powder. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_80ece066 | featureApplicability |
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| Teenage Worrier | hasFeature |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_8d81bb26 | type |
Mistaken for Evidence | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_8d81bb26 | comment |
One episode of NCIS had the team investigating what they believed was a murder caught on video. Halfway in, Abby discovers that the knife that was supposedly used as the murder weapon is a prop knife that drips stage blood. She demonstrated the knife was fake by using it on herself. This freaked out everyone that was watching. |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_8d81bb26 | featureApplicability |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_8d81bb26 | featureConfidence |
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| NCIS | hasFeature |
Mistaken for Evidence / int_8d81bb26 | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_974f7efb | type |
Mistaken for Evidence | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_974f7efb | comment |
One episode of The Drew Carey Show had Drew being investigated on suspicion of being a junkie. The white powder on Drew's coffee table is revealed to be powdered sugar from an extraordinary quantity of donuts, and one police officer found a professional-grade scale thinking it was being used to make meth, when Drew was trying to prove that Quarter Pounders weigh less than a quarter pound in order to file a lawsuit. Also, a drug-sniffing dog points to his desk at work, prompting Drew to open the drawer, which contained ribs. Another episode has Mimi stopped by the police, and subsequently being arrested when they discover a plastic bag full of a weird colored powder on her. Turns out it's her Excessive Evil Eyeshadow taken out of its native tin for some reason. |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_974f7efb | featureApplicability |
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| The Drew Carey Show | hasFeature |
Mistaken for Evidence / int_974f7efb | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_ca08598f | type |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_ca08598f | comment |
The Wire: After weeks of not hearing anything incriminating in their wiretap on Cheese, the detail catches a phone call of him almost in tear about having had to shoot "Dawg". After he is picked up and the detail almost have a victory celebration outside his interrigation room as he starts talking, Bunk and Freamon exit the room and reveal to them what had actually hapened. "Dawg" was Chees's pet fighting dog that lost a match and was injured necessitating Cheese to very literally Shoot the Dog. What the unit doesn't know, that the incident did lead to Cheese and his associates killing people on the street, but they blew their wiretap and line of questioning dead by bringing Cheese in too soon and for the wrong reason. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_ca08598f | featureApplicability |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_ca08598f | featureConfidence |
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| The Wire | hasFeature |
Mistaken for Evidence / int_ca08598f | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_cac1f772 | type |
Mistaken for Evidence | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_cac1f772 | comment |
A CSI episode started with a room with walled covered in spattered blood. Later it was found that the blood had come from a man with a nosebleed, deliberately messing up the walls. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_cac1f772 | featureApplicability |
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| CSI | hasFeature |
Mistaken for Evidence / int_cac1f772 | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_fe878a1b | type |
Mistaken for Evidence | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_fe878a1b | comment |
In Lies We Tell (Ourselves), Alya believes that Lila is telling the truth about being Ladybug's best friend because she gives key details about the battle on Heroes' Day that she should not have known unless either she was there (Alya having no idea that Lila was willingly akumatized as Volpina at the time and thus remembered the event) or if Lila actually was Ladybug's friend and the latter told her. | |
| Mistaken for Evidence / int_fe878a1b | featureApplicability |
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| Mistaken for Evidence / int_fe878a1b | featureConfidence |
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| Lies We Tell (Ourselves) / Fan Fic | hasFeature |
Mistaken for Evidence / int_fe878a1b |
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