A third party defense motion may be brought to preclude the defense from going down blind alleys, causing confusion to the jury, or attacking the prosecution's witness/victim. For example, if a victim misidentifies an assailant in a line-up and the prosecutor subsequently establishes through DNA testing that the misidentified party could not be the assailant, then the prosecutor may bring a motion to preclude the defense from presenting this person as an alternative suspect.

Third-party defense motions may also be used when the defense asserts that the crime was committed by a relative of the defendant.  Once the prosecutor has excluded the relative with DNA, this motion will prevent the defense from making this claim.

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