How true crime stories are influencing the real-life justice system

For better and worse, a rebirth in our cultural fascination with true crime — spurred, in part, by the launch of the hit podcast Serial a decade ago — has led to changes in the criminal justice system, legal experts say.

"You definitely see prosecutors, judges, criminal defence attorneys all being very cognizant of true crime," Adam Banner, a criminal defence attorney in Oklahoma, told The Sunday Magazine's Piya Chattopadhyay. 

Some who work in and study the legal system say it's changed how professionals approach cases, while also leading to a rise in amateur sleuths attempting to solve their own cases.

Banner says that true crime storytelling can be helpful in exposing flaws within the criminal justice system. 

"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." 

Podcasts and documentaries have had an impact on cold cases.

David Ridgen, host of the CBC true crime podcast Someone Knows Something, has reopened cases that led to an indictment, a conviction and several arrests. In the podcast's latest season, Ridgen recounts his investigation into the 1993 disappearance of Ontario teenager Christine Harron, which eventually led to the killer's conviction and arrest in 2016. 

Other titles in the popular genre include documentaries such as The Central Park Five and The Menendez Brothers, and the TV series Making a Murderer and The Jinx.

However, Banner says he's also concerned that true crime's use of certain tropes to tell compelling narratives affects perceptions of the criminal justice system. 

He says the genre focuses on outlier situations — cases that feature the "unresolved nature of the crime," the "grisly or more so shocking nature of the criminal conduct" and "extensive media coverage."  

But Banner says if only exceptional cases are held to account by the media, it could lead to public distrust in the justice system. 

"That is very damaging for the credibility of the criminal justice system." 

Danielle Robitaille, a managing partner and criminal litigator in Toronto, says she also has "mixed feelings about society's fascination with true crime."