Maxine Peake has signed on to fight for justice in “Reasonable Doubt,” a crime drama that sees her playing a mother on a mission to get an 800-year-old law revoked. Deadline broke the news. The project hails from Duchess Street Productions.

Based on a true story, “Reasonable Doubt” follows “Ann Ming’s battle to change the double jeopardy law in the UK after her daughter Julie Hogg was killed by Billy Dunlop in 1989,” the source summarizes.” Ming wrote a book about the experience, “For the Love of Julie.” Susan Everett (“Hinterland”) penned the script.

Duchess Street is also developing an adaptation of “The House of Sleep,” a 1997 novel about a narcoleptic woman, an insomniac man, and a doctor who is determined to eradicate sleep. Jane Eden (“The Split,” “Fortitude”) is penning the six-part series.

Last seen in Hulu’s “The Bisexual,” a comedy about a bisexual American (Desiree Akhavan) living in London, Peake’s other credits include “Black Mirror,” “The Theory of Everything,” and “Shameless.” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Happy Days” are among her stage credits.

“Women are still often portrayed as victims. Or there are questions about their mental health. That concerns me. When we see a successful woman on television, the question is always: why has she done that? She can’t have just done it because she wants to, she has to be having a breakdown,” Peake has said. She added, “There are still a lot of issues around violence towards women in dramas.” She observed that progress for women has been “very slow.” “It’s easier now,” she said. “It wasn’t for those women a generation before us, in the 1970s. But it’s still a struggle. Things haven’t been cured. They’ve just been highlighted.”