Wrongful Accusation Insurance

In detective stories and thrillers, sometimes a framed man fights to prove his innocence—usually of murder—and in doing so commits a series of smaller crimes, yet does not pay for them at the end. Crimes that are often committed in the pursuit of the proof of innocence include resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, reckless endangerment, assault and fraud. The immunity to consequences for those acts is a specific form of Hero Insurance, perhaps granted because they are perceived as acting under compulsion, like a twisted version of a Boxed Crook. In many cases, the transgressions they commit are also comparatively minor (property damage against the bad guy, petty or returnable in same condition theft, perhaps an assault that doesn't result in lasting injury) when compared to the crime they have been wrongly accused of, thus allowing the audience to overlook them and maintain sympathy with the character; when the crime isn't, however, then good luck keeping them on the hero's side.

Note that Would Not Shoot a Good Guy is generally in play; most such characters do not actually murder people who honestly believe them to be crooks.

In some stories, this can be Hand Waved by how high the conspiracy to frame the hero goes; if the trial would embarrass the government, showing how easily the justice system can be fooled or how entrenched the corruption within agencies sworn to defend the law, the parties involved might prefer to sweep the mess under the rug over confronting the imperfections in the system. Alternately, the government may be sufficiently damaged over the course of the story that it no longer has the capability to prosecute the hero.

A subtrope of Saved by the Awesome. See also: "Get Out of Jail Free" Card; Hero Insurance; Boxed Crook.

If the hero is hated due to being accused of a particular crime, yet (in the course of the plot) commits several other incredibly heinous deeds without anyone batting an eyelid, that's Selective Condemnation.

Anime and Manga

 * Subverted in Outlaw Star. What's the first thing Gene does upon his return to Sentinel? Jail time. Turns out that  doesn't excuse you from overdue parking tickets or leaving the planet without clearence - even if intergalactic pirates are to blame. Fred paid bail though, so it's alright (or, considering how much Gene already owes Fred, maybe not).
 * In Monster, Tenma breaks out of jail and shoots some people. However, since all of his actions are justified, and his name is cleared due to having a good attorney, a criminal psychologist, and a cop's thorough testimony on his side, the trope is averted.
 * Also note that breaking out of jail is not a crime in Germany, you have your right for freedom after all.

Fan Fic

 * Subverted in Awakening Of The Magus. After Fudge announces Sirius innocent in public, he attempts to bring up the matter of Sirius escaping Azkaban... until a journalist reminds him he announced Sirius to be free of all charges up to date.
 * Commonly played straight in every HP fanfic that uses this plot, actually. Probably justified by the fact that he was locked up in very irregular circumstances (Sirius was not only never given a trial, he was never even given so much as a grand jury hearing or an arraignment), to the point where any criminal investigation should be focused on the people who locked him up in the first place.
 * In other fics he's officially declared guilty of the relatively smaller crimes (such as being an unregistered animagus or assaulting Aurors) but since the time he previously spent in Azkaban is more than the combined sentence one can get for them, the only thing they can do is sentence him to "time served", collect whatever fines he might still owe, and let him go.
 * It's also instructive to note that in Wizarding Britain its not actually a crime to break out of Azkaban -- after all, the prison is 'inescapable', so they never considered the need for actually punishing criminals for the act of escaping from it. The reason Sirius has a shoot-on-sight order on him is because of his fugitive status for the crime he was originally imprisoned for, plus his presumed 'armed and extremely dangerous' status, plus politics.

Film

 * The movie The Negotiator is built around this trope. Samuel Jackson's character takes over and office building and holds people hostage, but it's all right as long as he catches the bad guy in the end.
 * In particular, Samuel Jackson's character is most likely guilty of murder because one of his prisoners is killed (and deaths during the commission of a felony are considered murder. ) However, we never actually see what happens.
 * The film ends with, but considering the massive amounts of police corruption he uncovered, chances they'll try to sort his charges out as quickly and quietly as possible.
 * The protagonist of the French film Tell No One caused a massive pile-up on one of Paris's busiest roads, one that certainly caused a lot of property damage, if no actual injuries.
 * In fact, even filming this insanely dangerous stunt (with dozens of high-speed vehicles and no special effects) seems kind of ethically shady.
 * Jamie Foxx's character in the end of Collateral is forced to impersonate an assassin and ends up committing a few crimes over the course of the end of the movie trying to save the last victim of said assassin. Good thing the.
 * There's a general legal principle that you are not responsible for acquiescing when someone with a gun to your head tells you to commit a crime or die.
 * The protagonist and girlfriend in The Sixties' monster mash Attack of the the Eye Creatures were framed for a murder committed by the the "creatures". Our heroes break out of jail and steal a police car. The girlfriend's influential father "takes care of everything" by having these charges dismissed.
 * In the early 90's film remake of The Fugitive with Harrison Ford, Dr. Kimble commits multiple burglaries (a clinic, a hospital, an apartment), thefts, auto theft (ambulance to be specific), unauthorized use of medical records, accessory after the fact in the murder of a transit cop (disposing of the gun, even though he didn't shoot the officer), and more in the course of proving that he didn't murder his wife. This is to say nothing of his original escape from custody, which is illegal whether or not you are innocent of the crime you are accused or convicted of (running away to avoid being hit by debris from a derailing train is justified, but continuing to run instead of turning himself in...). Notably, however, the film ends with him in the custody of the US Marshals who were pursuing him throughout the movie, and while he's cleared himself of the original murder, there's no indication that all the other stuff is going to be let slide.
 * An even more glaring example of this is seen in the sequel, U.S. Marshals, in which Mark Sheridan commits numerous felonies in the course of proving his innocence and attempting to flee the country—kidnapping, assault, and technically even attempted murder of a federal agent (when he shoots Gerard, even if he did deliberately aim for his bulletproof vest). His girlfriend counts as well, for aiding and abetting him. What's more, she might not yet be a US citizen and might even be in the country illegally, so her actions are enough to warrant her being deported. But at the end of the film, they're all seen walking out of a courthouse with a few throwaway lines about him being "cleared of all charges" However, it probably doesn't hurt his case that one of the people assigned to guard him, and later pursue him, was actually attempting to murder him to cover up his own crimes, making surrender something of a non-option. Given that Richard Kimble's crimes were so minor in comparison, one can Hand Wave that he received the same treatment.
 * It's almost guaranteed Kimble would not be charged with anything. The Chicago District Attorney and the local police would be already hard-pressed to explain why an innocent man was convicted of murder and was essentially forced to find the real killer himself. On top of it, as the real killer is a former Chicago cop, the CPD would already be looking like they framed Kimble to cover for one of their own. The only way they could make themselves look worse would be to charge Kimble with anything else.
 * Re: U.S. Marshals, note that the one legal reason for escaping from custody is if you legitimately fear that you will be murdered in custody. Of course, you are under obligation to turn yourself back in once you're safe, but arguably that is what the protagonist did.
 * Similarly in Firewall, while not out to clear his name, Harrison Ford's character, in the course of trying to save his kidnapped family: (1) breaks into an apartment and arrives at a murder scene, (2) gets his hands on the murder weapon clearly leaving prints, (3) takes a bank teller hostage at gunpoint, (4) breaks into his ex-secretary's apartment and apparently forces her to help him after firing her earlier, and (5) then hacks into the bad guys' account to erase their money.
 * Double Jeopardy.
 * Actually an inversion of the trope: The protagonist isn't chased for murdering her husband, but only for violating her parole conditions.
 * But she goes still goes free in spite of breaking and entering, stealing Lehman's car, stealing his gun, transporting said gun across state lines without a permit, property damage, and let's not forget her unremitting plan to kill a man, thanks to this film's use of Hollywood Law. This is a played straight example.
 * Minority Report has John Anderton committing theft and resisting arrest while trying to prove he won't murder someone. In the movie, he admittedly goes out of his way to not harm the PreCrime cops sent to get him. In the Game Of The Movie, you're free to slaughter them by the hundreds while trying to prove you wouldn't commit one murder. In the original short story,
 * The sci-fi setting makes it easy enough to Hand Wave this though - if you can arrest people for murders they haven't yet committed, who knows what other laws have changed in the future?
 * Assuming the laws haven't changed, I think he'd be guilty of Felony Murder for anyone who is murdered after he kidnapped one of the precogs . Also, while he never killed any of the cops, he did put at least one in severe danger of death.
 * About 1/4 of the way through It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the police note that even though none of the treasure hunters have a criminal record, they now have resisted arrest, destroyed property, burglarized a hardware store, assaulted many people, etc. This is all met basically with a shrug. (Justified in that the cops are waiting for these people to lead them to the stolen money.)
 * In the ending of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the titular duo kill four Federal agents in the process of evading capture for a (grossly) wrongful accusation of terrorism. Presumably, that gets included in the full pardon they get at the end from President Bush. Although the deaths were due to the agents' incompetence rather than caused by H&K directly, it would be their word against the State's since there were no surviving witnesses, and anyway it'd still count as felony murder.
 * A full pardon would indeed cover all federal crimes on or prior to the relevant date, including the wrongful deaths of federal agents.
 * Subverted in JCVD. JCVD is ultimately for a seemingly minor crime that he committed while trying to resolve the hostage situation and clear his name.
 * Hackers: In the course of stopping the crimes for which they were framed and obtaining the evidence of the real villain's plans, the heroes wreck an incredibly expensive supercomputer, but the FBI apparently doesn't prosecute them for it, since we see the main character and his girlfriend living (more or less) happily ever after at the end. This is most likely because the truth (which was broadcast worldwide by other hackers) embarrassed the FBI to no end -
 * The 2010 The a Team references this near the end,
 * Considering the number of US and foreign jurisdictions the heroes enter illegally and commit crimes in, they can only be saved from jail by this trope being played completely straight.
 * It's played straight at first when Agent Lynch promises their freedom in exchange for tracking down the man who framed them.
 * An obscure Western centered on a judge having to deal with this trope. A man was convicted of murder and was about to be hanged and killed the hangman while trying to escape. While a new hangman is brought in, the man is proven innocent of the original crime. The judge has to decide if the guy should hang for the new killing. In the end he deems it a case of self defense.
 * Brutally averted in Sin City comics. Marv is both wrongfully accused and ends up having to commit several acts of violence... for revenge. He knows good and well what this will lead to (the comics make it even more obvious) and has little intention of trying to clear his name.
 * The protagonist in Shooter kills an awful lot of Mooks in order to avoid being caught for something he didn't do. Luckily, they're all deniable government assets - and, so all prosecutors are left with is a whole lot of carnage that no-one wants to acknowledge - and a One-Man Army who's made it clear that all he wants is to be left in peace.
 * In the French thriller Ne le Dis à Personne, the protagonist causes a good deal of property damage in the course of clearing his name, all of which is forgotten about at the end of the movie.

Literature
""In the course of proving Optimus innocent of breaking and entering, the criminal acts you commit include: resisting arrest, interfering with a crime scene, removing evidence from a crime scene, assaulting a police officer, destruction of police equipment, unauthorised access of a police computer system, vandalism, industrial espionage, and breaking and entering. What lesson have we learned today, children?""
 * Benjamin Weaver, the protagonist of David Liss' historical mysteries finds himself framed for a crime in the second (and so far final) book in the series after being treated unfairly in court by a judge who was formerly his friend. After being helped to escape, he breaks into the judges house and then slices off his ear to get him to explain his odd behavior. Mind you, this is done in a period where almost every crime is punishable by death and he really only escapes prosecution because the judge was involved in a political conspiracy (he was blackmailed into acting unfairly toward the protagonist) and forced to flee the country.
 * In Peter Lovesey's The Summons, a convicted killer escapes and kidnaps the Chief Constable's daughter, demanding that his case be reopened. When he is finally cleared, he is not charged with the kidnapping.
 * The Transformers Animated Choose Your Own Adventure book "Prime Suspect". As TFWiki summarizes it:


 * In The Outsiders, Ponyboy is on trial for running away from home. In a variation, he truly believes himself guilty of killing a Soc, but the Socs testifying say that Johnny did it. He resolves himself to set them straight, but to his surprise the judge never gives him the chance (read: doesn't ask him about the killing) when questioning him. He gets off with a "Not Guilty" verdict.
 * In the beginning of the first novel of Michael Z Williamson's Freehold series, protagonist Kendra Pacelli is framed by her superiors for their crime of selling weapons to terrorists. She flees to the titular Freehold of Grainne, a minarchist nation with no extradition treaties with Earth. Over the course of the novel, Earth invades Grainne to destroy its competing economy - by then she has enlisted in the Freehold armed forces and does an impressive amount of damage as a resistance fighter. After the Grainneans drive them off, they prevent a second invasion by hitting Earth with a massive WMD strike that reduces the superpower to a third-world nation - one that actually acknowledges that she was framed by her superiors, hoping to draw the hero of the resistance to rejoin Earth's military. She "respectfully" declines.

Live Action TV

 * In order to clear his name of various accusations, 24's Jack Bauer has done everything from resisting arrest to kidnapping the president, and typically spends no more than 2 hours in detainment before being let free to pursue the terrorists.
 * The show Burn Notice seems to be working towards this. Though the main character might just be good enough that he'll be allowed back into whereverhe was burned from because they don't know...
 * In the third season premier, it's explicitly stated that he had it, to keep him out of jail, and cover him for all the things he did as a spy even before the show started. Emphasis on the "had."
 * Then he goes out and purchases some independently, by.
 * Following season three, his regular insurance is back in effect.
 * Happens every couple of episodes on The Dukes of Hazzard. (And if Boss Hogg really wants to arrest them, why doesn't he just get them for the car chase in last week's episode?) There's also the fact that the average lifespan of a Hazzard County police car is measured in days...
 * Boss Hogg is only a county justice of the peace, and thus cannot sit as a judge for felony cases. This means that anything he wants the Dukes to go to jail for has to be able to stand up in a criminal court he does not control... which rules out any case where Boss Hogg was himself up to something shady at the time, as the Dukes would of course immediately introduce that as part of their defense and be able to file discovery motions against Boss Hogg to support it. Until the Dukes do something criminal during an incident where Boss Hogg himself is squeaky clean that day—which means "never in the history of the show"—Hogg is understandably reluctant to risk it.
 * This is actually averted during the episode where Boss Hogg discovers that in the absence of the Duke boys' regular probation officer, Hogg gets to stand in for him officially—which means he now has the power to send the Duke boys to jail the next time they so much as sneeze wrong. The Dukes spend the rest of that episode having to be extra careful not to do anything until they can finally arrange for the Department of Corrections to assign another probation officer to their case.
 * Prison Break ends with something like this for some of the characters who survive to that point. Notably, only Lincoln Burrows was innocent of his crime; Michael Scofield robbed a bank to get into prison to free Lincoln and the other escapees were legitimate felons but the MacGuffin was the Wrongful Accusation Insurance for all of them.
 * Michael did not really "rob" a bank. He just entered it with drawn guns and waited for the police to arrive.
 * Things not working this way sets up the entire premise of the final season of Red Dwarf. In proving themselves innocent, they committed crimes that added up to a sentence equal to the one they'd spent the three-parter trying to get out of.
 * One episode of Monk, "Mr. Monk Is On the Run," features the titular character escaping from jail to clear himself of a false murder.
 * In the course of his time as a fugitive, Monk gets help from Natalie, who supplies him money and clothes, and Stottlemeyer, who helps him fake his death. Both of these people could have faced charges of aiding and abetting a state fugitive. Later on, when cornered by the corrupt sheriff who set Monk up at a Nevada car wash, Monk and Natalie attack him, with Natalie using a fire extinguisher on him, then escape by stealing his car, which could see them facing being charged with auto theft.
 * On the other hand, given that Monk averted an assassination attempt on the state governor in the end, he could have gotten a pardon and hence the trope could be averted.
 * Double Subversion in Law and Order Special Victims Unit. A man escapes from prison to clear his name after his son falsely accused him of molesting him. Olivia discovers the truth, and the governor sentences the man...to time served for escaping, which essentially amounts to a release.
 * A straight example would be . Justified, as.
 * Lois and Clark when Lois was accused of murder and Superman helped break her out. Justified, as the lawyer prosecuting her helped frame her and the DA's office wanted to put the whole mess behind them.
 * JAG featured a Double Subversion: the man who took Admiral Chegwidden hostage was sentenced to 8 years, then got time served for the time he spent in prison for treason.
 * Played with in Renegade; a lot of the wrongfully accused people Sixkiller Ent. helped seemed to get off scot-free, but there was the one time Reno helped a fugitive since the 70s prove He's sentenced to community service for evading justice, which, from what we see, means singing to kids. He doesn't seem to mind. We never get to see what would happen to Reno himself if his name were cleared, unfortunately.
 * Subverted, possibly twice, by the sixth season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Suspicions". Dr. Crusher performs an autopsy on a scientist she believes was murdered, in direct violation of his people's law, resulting in Picard removing her from her post as ship's doctor and stripping her of her rank pending a court martial. Although she eventually proves her case afterward, the end of the episode makes it clear that her career's hanging by a thread regardless... and yet she's right back on duty in the next episode like nothing ever happened. We can assume that the court martial exonerated her off-screen, but since the affair is never mentioned again, there's really no way to be sure. It may have helped that
 * In the mini-series For The Term Of His Natural Life, the wrongly convicted main character Rufus Dawes mentions that a pardon will not be enough, he didn't commit the original crime but he's committed plenty since then. He ends up receiving an unconditional pardon for any crimes he has committed.
 * Subverted and then played straight in Home and Away. Kane Phillips is arrested when he is caught with the proceeds of an armed robbery and a shotgun in his car. The robbery was committed by his father Gus, who tricked Kane into picking him up and then abandoned him. The man who forced Gus into the robbery then identifes Kane as the perp, and Gus himself arranges for Scott, Kane's imprisoned brother, to stitch up Kane at his trial. In the middle of the trial, during the jury's deliberations, Kane and his wife skip town and he is found guilty in absentia. Three years later Kane is captured and is charged with a number of robberies that he committed while on the run. To protect Kirsty and their son, Kane pleads guilty to these and accepts jailtime. However, later in the year, Kane decides to appeal and is somehow released even though he was never exonerated for the original robbery, to say nothing of the ones he did commit.
 * Episode 5 of Crime Traveller. Slade is accused of stealing diamonds.  He resists arrest, shoves people aside to escape (which is battery), and steals a car to escape.  Note that Slade is a police officer and still manages to keep his job after this, never mind being not sent to jail for the crimes.

Real Life

 * While there isn't anywhere on Earth that plays this completely straight, there are some places where the law expressly forbids punishing someone for exercising their natural "desire for freedom". Sure, they'll still do their damnedest to get you back, as well as try you for any crimes committed during your escape, but not for the act itself. However, on the other side of the coin, some places such as Germany and the Netherlands punish escape attempts by doubling your sentence and then holding you to it even if you are later exonerated of the crime for which you were imprisoned in the first place.
 * Also, juries of peers can make it less likely for anyone in this situation to be convicted, though it won't stop them getting charged.

Video Games

 * In Condemned: Criminal Origins, the protagonist is an FBI agent who is accused of murdering two cops. During the course of proving his innocence, he also kills a small army of hobos, drug addicts, and lunatics. To be fair, it was self defense, but still...
 * Ethan has an influential friend:.
 * In the sequel, so how Ethan gets away with killing a new army of hobos, plus breaking and entering, possibly murdering some security guards and police officers, is an interesting question. The fact that the last couple were conducted while  might help.
 * Pretty much the same happens in the first Max Payne game, though in this case Max getting away unpunished is explicitly due to him having an influential friend . Also, he doesn't think he deserved to get off and is therefore even more of a psychological mess in the sequel.
 * It helps that those he killed were criminals and gangsters, many of whom shot at him first, and he's DEA. It might get ridiculous how far you can stretch self-defense or some other case for him here, even though it's justified.
 * The character Preacher in Twisted Metal: Black fights in the tournament—committing no small number of homicides, with many of the victims being innocent bystanders, in the process—with the intention of clearing his name for a mass murder he committed under the influence of a powerful demon during an attempted exorcism.
 * Subverted in the text based adventure Corruption where, in order to escape a charge of insider dealing, you may have escape from prison, break into your colleagues office to steal valuable evidence and assault a police officer. At the end of the game, you are tried for all these crimes
 * Played very straight in Heavy Rain.  is being chased by the entire police force, thinking him to be the Origami Killer (he's not). He (depending on the player's actions) winds up evading arrest and assaulting police officers and damaging property and driving recklessly and, though not directly related to the evasion, deliberately kills a largely innocent man. If he doesn't get caught, once the police stop chasing him he's off scot-free.
 * To be fair, according to how you play the game Ethan doesn't have to do those things, and you can even just give him up to the police if you're so inclined. The fallout after the true Origami Killer's identity is revealed may be somewhat mitgated by the fact that the officer in charge Lt. Blake is fucking psychotic, so a decent lawyer could use Nahman Jayden's testimony to prove that Ethan had a good reason to resist arrest. There's also the whole time limit on his son's life and trials thing, so it could be argued that he was under duress at the time.
 * In Ghost Trick,
 * Sonic and Tails destroy a heck of a lot of military equipment in Sonic Adventure 2 due to the military coming after them thinking Sonic is Shadow, but never seem to come to any grief over it. Then again, they did save the world in the process.
 * And for that matter, there's no mention of the military being slapped with a lawsuit for wrongfully detaining and then subsequently trying very hard to kill Sonic simply because he happens to look like to a wanted fugitive.
 * Averted in Phantasy Star Portable. Yes, following Helga to was the right decision and ended up saving the day...but you still broke a direct order, went into restricted space, nearly got in the way of the operation to destroy the Hive, and rescued an enemy operative. For your heroism, you are swiftly discharged. Though it's neatly swept under the rug for Portable 2.

Western Animation

 * In the Disney version of The Wind in the Willows, in the process of escaping from jail after being wrongly accused of stealing a car, Toad steals a train right in front of the engineer and no one points out that even if he never stole the car, he still stole the train. However, since he jumped off the train while driving it, it might have been counted as "borrowing it without permission" because he only used it that one time.
 * The lack of this was used in a episode of The Powerpuff Girls, when they were framed by people wearing very bad costumes and put in jail. The simply break out by flying through a hole they made in a wall and catch the real criminals. At the end of the episode the Mayor says they have to go back to jail for breaking out, and they all have a laugh before he says he was serious (this was never mentioned again).
 * Also subverted in an episode of Timon and Pumbaa. The duo is accused of commiting a crime, they break out of jail and prove their innocence. They are then thrown right back in for breaking out of prison, because, as the police pointed out, "It's still a crime, even if you were innocent."
 * An episode of The Fairly OddParents has Timmy escaping from the police station to prove he wasn't shoplifting. He isn't punished for this. Though, to be fair, he was only ten, they might be more forgiving at that age.
 * Subverted in The Simpsons, where Mona Simpson is acquitted for the charges she went on the run for (destroying samples in Mr. Burn's biological warfare lab) but then gets put back in jail when Mr. Burns tricks her into admitting to a crime she frequently committed for the sake of avoiding arrest. Namely, giving false names to National Park registries.

Webcomics

 * Order of the Stick has an interesting example. Belkar murders two guards escaping from prison and has the charge reduced from Murder 1 to Manslaughter after the circumstances of his arrest (namely, that he was imprisoned under false pretenses and was arrested by an agent acting outside the law) are brought to light. Not to mention that, once the dust settles from the impending battle, there's no place left to imprison him and nobody left to do the imprisoning, so...
 * He is also out on what is basically work release, officially he still has jail time coming even after the sentence reduction for aiding in the battle.
 * In Schlock Mercenary, Tagon's Toughs end up on trial by the UNS for deliberately destroying the interior of an entire syndicated television network's building. Due to a bit of fleeing arrest and the interest of the local galactic god AI Petey, the judge for the trial is Petey himself. Over the course of the trial, it becomes apparent that while, yes, the Toughs were responsible for the bombing, the reason why the UNS is prosecuting them for the crime is significantly different than thought (complex social engineering by the UNS government was involved) and ultimately Petey is able to convince the UNS to sweep the whole thing under the rug lest he publicly reveal the fact that the UNS is deliberately bombing reality TV as part of a social engineering program.