Matrix defense

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The Matrix defense

From the plot of the film The Matrix (1999), whose protagonist is woken from an illusionary simulated world into the dystopian reality.

(US, law) A legal defense in which the defendant claims to have committed a crime in the belief that he/she was not in the real world, but in a simulated reality.
- 2012, C. Stephen Jaeger, Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 41:
  There is now a legal strategy called the "Matrix defense," which has been an effective form of insanity defense. The film evidently had a part in inspiring Lee Malvo, the Washington D.C. sniper, and it has been mentioned in connection with the Columbine High School killings, which happened less than a month after the release of The Matrix.