NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) 鈥� In 1989, Americans were riveted by the in their Beverly Hills mansion by their own children. Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison and lost all subsequent appeals. But today, more than three decades later, they unexpectedly have a chance of getting out.
Not because of the workings of the legal system. Because of entertainment.
After two recent documentaries and a scripted drama on the pair brought new attention to the 35-year-old case, the Los Angeles they be resentenced.
The popularity and proliferation of true crime entertainment like Netflix鈥檚 docudrama is effecting real life changes for their subjects and in society more broadly. At their best, true crime podcasts, streaming series and social media content can help expose injustices and right wrongs.
But because many of these products prioritize entertainment and profit, they also can have serious negative consequences.
It may help the Menendez brothers
The use of true crime stories to sell a product has a long history in America, from the tabloid 鈥減enny press鈥� papers of the mid-1800s to television movies like 1984's 鈥淭he Burning Bed." These days it's podcasts, bingeable Netflix series and even true crime TikToks. The fascination with the genre may be considered morbid by some, but it can be partially explained by the human desire to make sense of the world through stories.
In the case of the Menendez brothers, , who was then 21, and Erik, then 18, have said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the disclosure of the father鈥檚 long-term sexual molestation of Erik. But at their trial, many of the sex abuse allegations were not allowed to be presented to the jury, and prosecutors contended they committed murder simply to get at their parents鈥� money.
For years, that's the story that many people who watched the saga from a distance accepted and talked about.
The new dramas delve into the brothers' childhood, helping the public better understand the context of the crime and thus see the world as a less frightening place, says Adam Banner, a criminal defense attorney who writes a column on pop culture and the law for the American Bar Association鈥檚 ABA Journal.
鈥淣ot only does that make us feel better intrinsically," Banner says, 鈥渂ut it also objectively gives us the ability to think, 鈥榃ell, now I can take this case and put it in a different bucket than another situation where I have no explanation and the only thing I can say is, 鈥楾his child just must be evil.'鈥�
The rise of the antihero is at play
Much true crime of the past takes particularly shocking crimes and explores them in depth, generally with the assumption that those convicted of the crime were actually guilty and deserved to be punished.
The success of the podcast 鈥� ,鈥� which cast doubt on the , has given birth to a newer genre that often assumes (and intends to prove) the opposite. The protagonists are innocent, or 鈥� as in the case of the Menendez brothers 鈥� guilty but sympathetic, and thus not deserving of their harsh sentences.
鈥淭here is an old tradition of journalists picking apart criminal cases and showing that people are potentially innocent,鈥� says Maurice Chammah, a staff writer at The Marshall Project and author of 鈥淟et the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty."
鈥淏ut I think that the curve kind of goes up exponentially in the wake of 鈥楽erial,鈥� which was 2014 and obviously changed the entire landscape economically and culturally of podcasts," Chammah says. "And then you have 鈥楳aking a Murderer鈥� come along a few years later and become a kind of behemoth example of that in docuseries.鈥�
Roughly during the same time period, the innocence movement gained traction along with the Black Lives Matter movement and greater attention on police custody deaths. And in popular culture, both fiction and nonfiction, the trend is to mine a villainous character's backstory.
鈥淎ll these superheroes, supervillains, the movie 鈥楯oker' 鈥� you鈥檙e just inundated with this idea that people鈥檚 bad behavior is shaped by trauma when they were younger,鈥� Chammah said.
Banner often represents some of the least sympathetic defendants imaginable, including those accused of child sexual abuse. He says the effects of these cultural trends are real. Juries today are more likely to give his clients the benefit of the doubt and are more skeptical of police and prosecutors. But he also worries about the intense focus in current true crime on cases where things went wrong, which he says are the outliers.
While the puzzle aspect of 鈥淒id they get it right?鈥� might feed our curiosity, he says, we run the risk of sowing distrust in the entire criminal justice system.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want to take away the positive ramifications that putting that spotlight on a case can bring. But you also don鈥檛 want to give off the impression that this is how our justice system works. That if we can get enough cameras and microphones on a case, then that鈥檚 how we鈥檙e going to save somebody off of death row or that鈥檚 how we鈥檙e going to get a life sentence overturned.鈥�
Adds Chammah: "If you open up sentencing decisions and second looks and criminal justice policy to pop culture 鈥� in the sense of who gets a podcast made about them, who gets Kim Kardashian talking about them 鈥� the risk of extreme arbitrariness is really great. ... It feels like it鈥檚 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.鈥�
The audience is a factor, too
Whitney Phillips, who teaches a class on true crime and media ethics at the University of Oregon, says the popularity of the genre on social media adds another layer of complications, often encouraging active participation of viewer and listeners.
鈥淏ecause these are not trained detectives or people who have any actual subject area expertise in forensics or even criminal law, then there鈥檚 this really common outcome of the wrong people being implicated or floated as suspects," she says. "Also, the victims' families now are part of the discourse. They might be accused of this, that, or the other, or at the very least, you have your loved one's murder, violent death, being entertainment for millions of strangers.鈥�
This sensibility has been both chronicled and lampooned in the streaming comedy-drama series which follows three unlikely collaborators who live in a New York apartment building where a murder has taken place. The trio decide to make a true crime podcast while simultaneously trying to solve the case.
Nothing about true crime is fundamentally unethical, Phillips says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 that the social media system 鈥� the attention economy 鈥� is not calibrated for ethics. It鈥檚 calibrated for views, it鈥檚 calibrated for engagement and it鈥檚 calibrated for sensationalism."
Many influencers are now vying for the 鈥渕urder audience,鈥� Phillips says, with social media and more traditional media feeding off each other. True crime is now creeping into lifestyle content and even makeup tutorials.
鈥淚t was sort of inevitable that you would see the collision of these two things and having these influencers literally just put on a face of makeup and then tell a very kind of 鈥� it鈥檚 very informal, it鈥檚 very dishy, it鈥檚 often not particularly well researched," she says. 鈥淭his is not investigative journalism.鈥�
Travis Loller, The Associated Press
