Ryan Murphy says ‘Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez story’ is the best thing to happen to the brothers in decades. There is one way the show could help their case.

Shima Baughman, a professor of law at BYU Law School in Utah, said media attention has the potential to help defendants, pointing to Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, the subjects of the 2010s Emmy-winning Netflix docuseries “Making a Murderer” — one of the first big true crime hits of the streaming era.

The series focused on Avery’s 2007 conviction for the murder of Wisconsin photographer Teresa Halbach and Dassey’s 2007 conviction of accessory to the murder. The show cast such convincing doubts over whether the pair were guilty that viewers unsuccessfully petitioned then-President Barack Obama to pardon them both.

Kathleen Zellner, Avery and Dassey’s current attorney, told the Guardian in 2018 that she took them on as clients after watching the first season.

“Watching his facial expressions during the trial, I thought there was a strong possibility he was innocent,” Zellner said of Avery.

Baughman said the petition and Zellner’s decision to represent Avery and Dassey shows the potential impact of true crime.

“If the Menendez brothers documentary shows a potential miscarriage of justice it could have a similar positive effect,” she said.

But the fact that Avery and Dassey are still serving life sentences shows how little public support means in a court of law.

Netflix’s Menendez brothers shows wouldn’t achieve much in court

The brothers’ next hearing is on November 26 after petitioning for a new appeal in May 2023.

The LA Times reported last year that the petition includes two new pieces of evidence: a letter written by Erik Menendez to his cousin a year before the murder and Roy Roselló‘s 2023 allegation that José Menendez drugged and raped him as a teenager. Roselló was part of the boy band Menudo, whom Menendez helped sign a deal with at RCA records in 1983.

The Menendez brothers’ attorneys plans to use this evidence to argue the brothers were abused, in an attempt to change their conviction to manslaughter and reduce their sentence.

Levenson said the brothers have “great lawyers,” but an appeal is a long process.

Referring to Murphy’s comments about “Monsters,” Levenson added: “In terms of it being the best thing that ever happened, only if it leads to evidence to actually overturn case, which I still think is a real upward battle.”