THE surge of true crime documentaries has not only changed the viewing habits of audiences around the world, it is also predicted to change the way mainstream society interprets and discusses the law.

Where the CSI effect exposed the unrealistic expectations about forensic and police procedures, the Making a Murderer effect could create more cynicism among jurors.

In the same vein, The Staircase – another of the internet’s true-crime obsessions – has raised questions about the justice system.

The 13-part documentary explores the trial of Michael Peterson, a novelist living in North Carolina, accused of murdering his wife Kathleen Peterson.

Despite insisting that Kathleen fell down the staircase in their home, Peterson, now 74, ended up spending eight years in jail.

In the end, blood-spatter analyst Duane Deaver – whose testimony was critical in swaying the jury’s decision – was discredited and Peterson was eventually released.

The initial guilty verdict was a ‘profoundly disturbing time’ for Peterson’s lawyer David Rudolf, who is now travelling the world discussing the case.

The 69-year-old defence lawyer was left doubting the justice system which he has worked in since in the 1970s.

“It was devastating to me”, he explains. “For me, I was convinced once we found the blow poke (suspected murder weapon) that the worst we would get was a hung jury.

“I never thought we would get a guilty verdict. When that happened it really did cause me to have some real doubts about the justice system, about my perception of the trial and about my own abilities. It was a profoundly disturbing time for me.”

Rudolf was approached by the filmmakers shortly after taking Peterson on as a client. Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade had previously worked on Academy award-winning Murder on a Sunday Morning, which followed the trial of an indigent 15-year-old boy wrongly accused of murder.

“They wanted to make a documentary looking at the criminal justice system dealing with a person from wealth”, he adds.

“It was a complicated decision. Michael felt that the local authority would be prejudice against him because he had been critical of them in the newspaper and he thought having a foreign film crew there might keep things a little bit more honest than they otherwise would be.

“For me, it was a question of making sure nothing we did in preparing for trial would ever get to the hands of the prosecution and that involved a number of conditions that had to be met from me.

"Including that nothing would be aired before any trials or appeals had been completed and that they would be sending their film every night over to France, so that if the American prosecutor tried to get hold of it, he would have to go to France.”

Despite having film crews following every detail of the trial, including revelations of bisexuality, claims of money problems and the exhumation of Elizabeth Ann McKee Ratliff’s grave (a family friend of Peterson who died in similar circumstances as his wife), Rudolf believes the documentary was beneficial to his work.

When it came time to discredit the work of Deaver, his whole testimony was on film.

Peterson was released from prison in 2011 and, in 2017, opted to take an Alford deal admitting guilt because of sufficient evidence while still maintained his innocence. In turn he didn’t face any additional jail time.

Rudolf explains: “From an ego perspective it would have been nice to have another trial and have another jury say ‘not guilty’.

“From Michael’s perspective it was the right decision. A not guilty verdict wouldn’t have had any better outcome for him in terms of his everyday life than the to what he has now. 

“Going through another one of those marathon trials would have been very detrimental not just to him but to his whole family.

“I don’t think there’s anything I would have done differently.

“When I try a case, I like to think through really carefully what I’m doing and why I’m doing it and it’s not always necessarily the right decision as it turns out but it’s a well thought out careful decision. 

“I can’t think back on anything from the trial where I think I wish I would’ve done this or I wish I hadn’t done that. 

“It would be easier to that say I should’ve picked a different jury but I had my reasons for picking the jury.”

Having been broadcast on BBC iPlayer before being picked up by streaming service Netflix, audiences around the world have been given a firsthand look into the courtroom proceedings but also the emotional turmoil faced by Peterson’s family - not all who believed he was innocent.

The trial divided the Peterson family and audiences alike but, despite differing opinions, Rudolf has only ever received positive feedback.

“It’s been actually very rewarding and affirming. Very few people have been negative about even the defence”, he says.

“There are people who write to say they think he’s guilty but even those people generally say ‘but I thought you presented a good defence’. Some of them say ‘I don’t think it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt’.

Following on from successful talks by Making a Murderer lawyers Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, Rudolf decided to use his platform to discuss not only the case, but issues surrounding the current judicial system.

“It’s good to have people be more sensitive to some of the issues that those who work in the system have known about for a very long time and to help people become better jurors, because they’re more informed about some of the problems that exist.

“There’s a long list of things that need to be done to reform the system. 

“I think junk science needs to be better controlled by judges, police need to be better trained about how they go about investigating and conducting interrogations and I think jurors need to be more susceptible, more questioning and apply the reasonable doubt standard more rigorously.”

With his long career as a defender, the Peterson case is one that will forever be associated to David Rudolf but, regardless of the fact he never secured the not guilty verdict he had worked tirelessly for, it’s a legacy he is happy to leave behind.

He adds: “I think the documentary is great, its very well done and I think it’s sort of nice for my children and grandchildren and whoever else down the road, to be able to see that and appreciate what I did as a lawyer.”

An Evening with David Rudolf will be coming to Edinburgh Queens Hall on November 25 and Glasgow’s O2 Academy on November 26.

Find other ticketmaster events here