Sophie RobinsonNetflix released all eight episodes of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on 17 September 2026, turning Ella Beatty's portrayal of the Fall River axe-murder suspect into the streaming event of the autumn. Within 24 hours the series had claimed the number-one spot globally. As millions of British viewers work through the story of a woman acquitted in 1893 despite near-universal public condemnation, criminal solicitors across England and Wales are fielding a strikingly contemporary question: if she was acquitted, why does everyone still treat her as guilty — and could that happen here?
The Borden Verdict: What "Not Guilty" Actually Means in Law
On 20 June 1893, an all-male Massachusetts jury deliberated for just 90 minutes before returning a not-guilty verdict in the trial of Lizzie Borden, accused of the axe murders of her father Andrew Borden and stepmother Abby Borden on 4 August 1892. No other suspect was ever charged. No other arrest was ever made. The case remains officially unsolved.
Legal experts watching the Netflix adaptation point to a distinction the general public consistently misses. "An acquittal means the prosecution failed to prove guilt to the required standard — it does not mean the jury believed the defendant was innocent," explains the bedrock principle taught in every English criminal law course. The verdict in a criminal trial is binary: guilty or not guilty. There is no official finding of "innocent." The burden of proof — beyond reasonable doubt — rests entirely with the prosecution, and a not-guilty verdict simply records their failure to clear that bar.
In England and Wales, the Criminal Practice Directions make this precise: the jury's task is to decide whether the prosecution has proven its case, not to deliver a verdict on who they believe committed the offence. Lizzie Borden's jury may have been deeply uncertain about her guilt, or they may have been entirely convinced of her innocence — the verdict was identical either way.
That ambiguity is exactly what Netflix's Monster franchise has always exploited to maximum dramatic effect. It left the same uncomfortable tension over Jeffrey Dahmer's victims' grief in Season 1 and the Menendez brothers' childhood abuse in Season 3. With Lizzie Borden, the show sharpens that tension to its finest point: an acquittal gave the culture a woman it could never stop arguing about, precisely because no court ever officially called her innocent.
UK Law Is More Complex — Acquittals Are Not Always Final
Here is where the show's historical setting diverges sharply from the legal reality facing British viewers in 2026. Under 19th-century Massachusetts law, Lizzie Borden could never have been retried once acquitted — the ancient double jeopardy protection was absolute.
In England and Wales, that protection was fundamentally altered by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Part 10 of that Act, specifically Sections 75 to 97, abolished the double jeopardy rule for 29 qualifying serious offences — including murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, and kidnapping. Under Section 76, the Director of Public Prosecutions can apply to the Court of Appeal to have an acquittal quashed if new and compelling evidence has come to light, evidence that was not available at the time of the original trial.
The Court of Appeal must then assess two tests: first, whether the new evidence is reliable, substantial, and highly probative; and second, whether a retrial would be in the interests of justice given the time elapsed and any prejudice to the defendant.
The law has been used. William Dunlop became the first person retried under these provisions after he was acquitted twice of murdering Julie Hogg in Teesside in the early 1990s. In 2006, after DNA advances confirmed his presence at the scene in ways the original trials could not establish, Dunlop pleaded guilty to murder in the Crown Court. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The case confirmed that an acquittal, in England and Wales, is no longer an absolute shield — it is a qualified one, contingent on whether science and investigation have truly exhausted themselves.
For the official current position, the Crown Prosecution Service publishes detailed guidance on double jeopardy and retrial for serious offences.
A Concrete Case: When New Evidence Changes Everything
To understand what this means in practice, consider the following scenario — not a hypothetical, but the kind of case criminal solicitors now encounter with increasing regularity.
Sarah, 38, was acquitted of a serious financial fraud charge in October 2023. The jury heard complex accounting evidence over three weeks and returned a not-guilty verdict in under two days. Sarah resumed her career, believing the matter was resolved.
In early 2026, a financial technology firm working with the National Crime Agency deployed a machine-learning transaction-analysis system that retrospectively flagged a pattern of transfers invisible to the forensic accountants at the time of the original trial. The new analysis identified a series of 14 transactions, each below the £9,500 threshold used by the earlier software, that cumulatively routed £287,000 through three intermediary accounts.
If fraud is added to the qualifying offences list — which the Home Office consulted on in 2024 — the CPS could apply to the Court of Appeal under Section 76 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. If the court agreed the new evidence was compelling and reliable, and that a fair retrial remained possible, Sarah would face prosecution again, more than two years after her acquittal. She would need to retain a criminal solicitor from the beginning and rebuild her defence from scratch. Under the current qualifying offences framework, this scenario is not possible for fraud — but it illustrates precisely the kind of analysis a solicitor conducts when a client believes their case is closed.
The key questions a legal adviser would work through: Is the original offence on the Section 75 qualifying list? Is the new evidence genuinely unavailable at the original trial, not merely overlooked? Would a retrial be fair given the time elapsed? Each answer carries significant practical consequences for the client's next steps.
If you have been acquitted of a serious offence in England and Wales and believe new evidence may be emerging in connection with your case, consulting a criminal solicitor without delay is essential. Waiting is not neutral — it narrows options.
The Court of Public Opinion: What Defamation Law Does and Does Not Protect
Even without a retrial, an acquitted defendant in Britain faces something Lizzie Borden endured for the remaining four decades of her life: public assumption of guilt. She was shunned by Fall River society until her death in 1927, despite a verdict that formally cleared her. Could a modern UK equivalent of Lizzie Borden use defamation law to protect their reputation?
The Defamation Act 2013 gives English courts some of the most plaintiff-friendly defamation law in the world. Under Section 1, a defendant must show that the published statement caused or is likely to cause "serious harm" to reputation. Under Section 2, the "truth" defence requires the defendant to prove on the balance of probabilities that the statement is substantially true — a standard the prosecution could not meet beyond reasonable doubt in the original criminal trial.
This creates a genuine legal asymmetry. A documentary, article, or social media post that asserts an acquittee is guilty could potentially be actionable under English defamation law if the creator cannot prove the statement is substantially true and the harm to reputation is serious. The "public interest" defence under Section 4 of the 2013 Act provides a significant carve-out for responsible journalism, but it requires the defendant to show they reasonably believed publication was in the public interest — a test Netflix, with its team of legal advisers and its explicit framing of the show as dramatised fiction, would likely meet comfortably.
For a private individual — not a celebrity, not a public figure — the position is more complicated and more favourable. A persistent social media campaign asserting guilt after acquittal, or a workplace email circulating arrest details, could constitute defamation where the serious harm threshold is met. A defamation solicitor can assess whether the harm is legally actionable within the one-year limitation period under the Limitation Act 1980.
For further reading on how true crime documentaries intersect with legal testimony and witness rights under English law, see this related analysis: The Witness Netflix: How True Crime Documentaries Affect Legal Testimony in the UK.
What To Do If Criminal Charges Affect You
The Lizzie Borden story, as reimagined by Netflix in September 2026, is ultimately about the gap between legal verdicts and public perception — a gap that English law acknowledges but cannot fully bridge. Whether you are facing criminal charges, seeking to understand the limits of an existing acquittal, or exploring your options after reputational damage following a trial, the starting point is always the same: professional legal advice from a qualified criminal solicitor or defamation lawyer who knows the current state of English and Welsh law.
The questions raised by Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story — about evidence standards, the meaning of acquittal, and the reach of double jeopardy reform — are not academic. They are live issues that the courts of England and Wales continue to interpret.
Legal disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you are involved in criminal proceedings or believe your reputation has been harmed, consult a qualified solicitor. Laws and their application vary and may change.
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