Is true crime a new path to justice?

The Menendez brothers are awaiting the judge’s decision that could finally set them free more than 30 years after they were found guilty of murdering their parents in California.

Should Lyle and Erik Menendez succeed in their bid for resentencing, it will owe enormously to changing perceptions of sexual abuse and the impact it has on its victims. But it will also owe plenty to the power of drama, documentary, social media and the internet.

Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez sit with defence attorney Leslie Abramson during a hearing on November 26, 1990.Credit: AP Photo/Nick Ut

Their case featured in recent TV series and a documentary, returning them to the headlines and educating millions about their lives. While the most high-profile, it is far from the only case in which a legal finding has been challenged or overturned as a result of being revisited through popular culture.

HBO series The Jinx resulted in criminal charges against its subject, Robert Durst, when he was caught confessing to a murder on tape. Netflix’s Making of a Murderer both chronicled and contributed to the trial and retrial of Steven Avery for murder.

The director of the latest show about the murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado, nearly four decades ago, argues her killer could finally be brought to justice. In Netflix’s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey, Oscar-nominated director Joe Berlinger investigates the mishandling of the case. He cites unidentified male DNA as key to its resolution.

The Boulder Police Department released a statement this week saying the investigation into the case was “active and open”, but did not suggest a breakthrough was imminent.

A new documentary investigates the death of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, who was found in the basement of the family home in Colorado in 1996.

In Australia, the Teacher’s Pet podcast ramped up pressure on police investigating the 1982 disappearance of Lynette Joy Dawson. Her husband, former rugby league player Chris Dawson, was ultimately convicted of her murder. How much the podcast was responsible for that is disputed but on the day the verdict was handed down the missing mother’s family thanked the man behind it, Hedley Thomas, “from the bottom of our hearts”.

Is pop culture stepping in where the legal system falls short? Fuelled by audience appetite for true crime stories, TV shows, podcasts and documentaries seem to be playing a significant role by picking up where official investigations have apparently stopped or stagnated, or by increasing pressure on authorities to do more.

Erik and Lyle Menendez were found guilty in 1996 of killing their parents in 1989. Now 53 and 56, they are appealing their life sentences without parole. This week, their aunts joined calls for their release, saying 35 years was long enough.

Changing social ideas about abuse – revelations of which featured in both a Netflix drama and new documentary – have led to support for them from new audiences, and greater empathy for their situation.

Erik, left, and Lyle with their father, Jose Menendez.

Celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, joined the call for a reassessment of the convictions after the 35-year-old case was reimagined in Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story, the Netflix series that put the boys’ sustained abuse by their father at the centre of the story.

What at the time seemed like a tale of greed has now been cast in a different light.

The impact of TV shows, documentaries or podcasts on justice outcomes is complicated, and differs case by case, says Greg Stratton, senior lecturer, criminology and legal, at RMIT.

“What we know about justice and the way society works – race, gender, class, marginalisation and vulnerability – those things coalesce on the back of these things. You tend to see more privileged people get more leverage out of the true-crime stuff and the Menendez case is a good example of that,” he says.

The things that lead to wrongful conviction are the things that lead to audience interest, says Stratton, those gaps in justice and the problems in society exposed in true crime. “It makes audiences think about things, but again the criticism is it keeps it at arm’s length. It’s a way of us as audiences being able to say that we understand the topic without actually advocating for or pushing for further changes or reforms in the system.”

Stratton is writing a book about the issue, Streaming Justice: true crime and wrongful conviction in the streaming age, and says victims are often left out of the conversation in true crime.

Actor and first-time director Anna Kendrick of Netflix film Woman of the Hour, about American serial killer Rodney Alcala, felt so uncomfortable making money from real-life crimes of that nature she donated her payment to anti-violence charities.

Anna Kendrick in Woman of the Hour, screening on Netflix.Credit: Leah Gallo/Netflix

Mr Bates Vs the Post Office, which dramatised the Post Office scandal in Britain, had significant real-life repercussions. The ITV series told the story of the thousands of postmasters wrongly convicted of theft and fraud – at least four took their own lives. The discrepancies were caused by a faulty accounting system operated by Fujitsu.

Described by The Economist as “Britain’s worst miscarriage of justice”, action was taken only after the show screened: it shone a light on a parliamentary inquiry into the case and led to laws providing compensation, and the overturning of wrongful convictions.

One of the earliest true-crime podcasts to resonate globally featured Adnan Syed, the 18-year-old convicted of murdering his high school girlfriend Hai Min Lee in Baltimore in 2000; he always proclaimed his innocence. Revelations in the first series of Serial, the NPR podcast released in 2014, cast doubt over the verdict. In 2022, Syed successfully appealed his sentence and was finally freed.

Monsters and Serial are examples of what often happens when true-crime cases hit the headlines, according to Stratton. There’s a commercial imperative to making these programs, too, he says. “You watch and listen to these productions, and you stream them or binge them really quickly. There’s usually a next step, but audiences don’t usually flow into that.”

A photograph of Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed at junior prom, as seen in the HBO documentary series The Case Against Adnan Syed.Credit: HBO

Those telling true-crime stories like to provide audiences with a resolution, but the reality is rarely that simple. The most common outcome for the convicted person, such as Adnan Syed, is ongoing legal action hanging over their head. Despite his successful appeal and all charges being dropped in 2022, in 2023 they were reinstated and a new hearing ordered.

It’s very rare that we can draw a direct line that says a show led to a major breakthrough in a case, Stratton says, but it’s important for people to be heard, including those committed of crimes. “Even if you’re still in jail, how you are portrayed and your story being told can be really beneficial.”

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