This is in essence a "confession" story. Nevertheless, the defendant and the defense attorney may adopt a defense theory that "overzealous police officers tried to paper-over weak eyewitness identification evidence by improperly extracting a confession from a naive suspect." This theory is consistent with the defendant's version of events, and it describes events in a way that favors the defense.

Pursuing this strategy, the defense attorney might file a pretrial motion seeking to bar the prosecution from offering the confession into evidence because the police failed to comply with Miranda procedures. In addition, the defense attorney might develop arguments that the eyewitness identification evidence is too weak to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The goal of this strategy may be either to achieve a not guilty verdict at trial, or to weaken the prosecutor's case enough to persuade the prosecutor to agree to the defense's desired plea bargain. Even if the defendant is convicted, the defense attorney may rely on the defendant's lack of a prior criminal record, and the fact that he was a dupe who passively participated in a crime orchestrated by others, to argue for minimum punishment.

In addition, attorneys can coach defendants by fully explaining the charges against them, and by imparting as much as is known of the prosecution's story, before starting to question them about a version of events. Defendants need such information if they are to tell an accurate version that does not leave out information potentially helpful to the defense.