I heard the phrase a while ago, it was two words I believe. The instance was a woman was approached by police and before they said anything to her she said "I wasn't soliciting" denying a crime she had not been accused of, the officer replied by telling her what she had done, using the phrase I am looking for.
Note, this was on tv, I'm not wandering places where people yell "I'm not soliciting"
There is a line from Hamlet by Hamlet by William Shakespeare that people use in these cases:
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
The line is typically quoted (or misquoted, as in "methinks the lady doth protest too much") to suggest that someone who is strongly denying something is hiding the truth,[2] or to imply doubt in a person's sincerity.[4] The phrase can be used this way even when the subject is male.[3]
You can look up the references at Wikipedia.
That expression would only apply if the lady in question was in fact guilty of the crime she was denying.
The common human reaction of denying involvement even in the absence of a formal accusation is called the "exculpatory no." In the US, lying to a federal officer is a crime. One defense to this charge prior to 1998 is the exculpatory no. In that year the Supreme Court abolished the defense. See Brogan v. U.S., 522 U.S. 398 (1998). So, the officer could say, "that's an exculpatory no, I didn't even ask you what you were doing here."
I believe the phrase you're looking for is, "unprovoked denial." I was trying to remember it too so I did a quick search and came across your question. When I found it in my notes, I came back to your post to let you know.
You might call it deflecting blame, or deflecting. She might be sidestepping an investigation or trying to "ward off" the inquiry.
The idiom: don't look at me TFD
- An exclamation of innocence from a general accusation or implication of wrongdoing, with the emphasis placed on "me."
As in:
Jane: "All right, which one of you kids broke the vase in the living room?" Tom: "Don't look at me! I've been playing outside all day!"
Are you sure you didnt mean someone who pleads "no contest" or nolo contendre? In NY it is called an Alford plea.
This is a strong case of paralipsis.
@RaceYouAnytime commented a strong link that references paralipsis.
How about a one word answer: incriminate
to incriminate: to involve in an accusation; cause to be or appear to be guilty; implicate:
For example: He feared incriminating himself if he answered.
I bet the cop yelled, "You've incriminated yourself, lady!"
Okay, so... You understand that I'm making this suggestion because it was something you saw on tv.
In an episode of the American tv series Columbo, a police series, which I saw as a repeat last week, the woman said something like that to star Peter Falk, who plays the eponymous detective. And he asked her: Are you taking the Fifth, mam?
In the United States, there is a common expression, to take the Fifth, derived from the 5th Amendment to the American Constitution, which entitles a person accused of a crime to refuse to answer the accusation if the answer would tend to incriminate him.
So if the wife accuses me of watching Columbo, when I ought to have been out walking the dog, I might take the Fifth, rather than incriminate myself by an admission.
(Columbo has a dog himself, and it appears in a lot of the 1990's episodes. My dog enjoys the show, because he thinks the dog is its star! At least, that's what I ended up telling my wife...)
https://dictionary.cambridge.org
self-incrimination meaning: 1. saying or doing something that shows that you are guilty of a crime:
"That's self-incrimination," said the officer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-incrimination
Self-incrimination can occur either directly or indirectly:
directly, by means of interrogation where information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed;
or indirectly, when information of a self-incriminatory nature is disclosed voluntarily without pressure from another person.[2]
"Freudian slip" could also apply.
Sigmund Freud argued that personality is formed through conflicts among three fundamental structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego. He thought that one's true suppressed [sexual] feelings can show themselves, slip out in error, when one is under stress and unable to maintain the facade constructed to hide ones true feelings or beliefs. The woman, when confronted by the police officer was unable to maintain the falsehood that she was not, in fact, soliciting and, because she knew that she was, she verbalised the thought unconsciously - as Freud suggests, hence a Freudian Slip.
