Netflix unveiled the trailer and premiere date on Wednesday for Michael Jackson: The Verdict, a three-part documentary series that revisits the pop star’s 2003 criminal trial through the voices of people who were inside the courtroom. The series is set to premiere June 3.
The project is built around jurors, media members and attorneys who watched the case unfold, and it aims to dissect both the trial and Jackson’s complicated legacy. David Herman is the showrunner, with Fiona Stourton, Herman and former ABC News president James Goldston serving as executive producers. Nick Green directs each of the 50-minute-long episodes.
The timing matters because Jackson’s legal history continues to draw new attention even years after his death. He was indicted on 10 criminal counts in 2003, including child molestation, administering an intoxicating agent to a minor and conspiracy to commit child abduction and false imprisonment. He was acquitted on all counts in 2005, but several civil lawsuits followed after that verdict, and the new series arrives as another attempt to sort through a case that never really stopped echoing.
Jackson had already faced similar allegations in 1993, when a 13-year-old boy made accusations against him, though he was not charged. He died in 2009 from acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication, with the drugs administered by his personal doctor. That history hangs over every fresh retelling, especially one that says it will focus on the courtroom record rather than the mythology that grew up around him.
The new series also lands in the shadow of a different, more celebratory Jackson project: the feature film Michael, which stars Jaafar Jackson, Nia Long and Colman Domingo and does not address his criminal charges. That film ends in 1988 with the Bad World Tour, leaving the later legal battles untouched. By contrast, Michael Jackson: The Verdict goes directly into the trial years and the aftermath that followed.
Jackson’s story has already been revisited on screen before. In 2019, HBO released the two-part documentary Leaving Neverland, directed by Dan Reed and featuring Wade Robson and James Safechuck. Michael Jackson: The Verdict appears to be taking a different route, built not around new accusations but around the people who sat through the case itself. Whether that makes the story clearer is the question the series will now have to answer on camera.
