As a true crime fan, you might be wondering whether the shows have any impact or lead to changes in real-life cases and the justice system.
After all, some of the cases that have been featured in true crime shows are unsolved and it could spark an interest for the audience to demand the authorities to revisit the case or help provide new clues to the mystery.
True Crime Shows' Influence on Real-Life Cases
We've seen time and time again that true crime shows can have an impact on real-life cases aside from just bringing awareness.
With the popularity of true crime in both streaming TV and podcasts, there is more interest among the public to keep an eye on criminal cases and the justice system.
"You definitely see prosecutors, judges, criminal defense attorneys all being very cognizant of true crime," Adam Banner, a criminal defense attorney in Oklahoma," explained.
He added that the popularity of true crime has also helped expose the flaws in the criminal justice system and led to the public demanding changes.
"When you have situations where an individual is incarcerated for years or decades, and then you see justice served in the back end because of the scrutiny that maybe a true crime documentary provided, that's very beautiful to see," Banner said.
"The negative impact of it is the fact that to get to that beautiful part, somebody had to suffer [and] get the bad end of the stick for quite a long time."
The Negative Impact of True Crime to Real-Life Cases
While there are some positives about the impact of true crime shows in criminal cases, there are also some consequences on the investigations and the jury's potential perception during a trial.
Banner explained that juries today are "more likely to give his clients the benefit of the doubt and are more skeptical of police and prosecutors" and he "worries about the intense focus in current true crime on cases where things went wrong, which he says are the outliers."
"You don’t want to take away the positive ramifications that putting that spotlight on a case can bring. But you also don’t want to give off the impression that this is how our justice system works," he said.
"That if we can get enough cameras and microphones on a case, then that’s how we’re going to save somebody off of death row or that’s how we’re going to get a life sentence overturned."
Author Maurice Chammah cautioned, "If you open up sentencing decisions and second looks and criminal justice policy to pop culture — in the sense of who gets a podcast made about them, who gets Kim Kardashian talking about them — the risk of extreme arbitrariness is really great."
"It feels like it’s only a matter of time before the wealthy family of some defendant basically funds a podcast that tries to make a viral case for their innocence."
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