Nancy Grace

Nancy Ann Grace (born October 23, 1958) is an American talk show host and former prosecutor. She frequently discusses issues from what she describes as a "victims' rights" standpoint. However, national victim advocate organizations no longer considered her a supporter of victim's rights due to her misconduct as a prosecutor and on her television show (see criticisms below) as she explicitly prefers the money and attention of television rather than altruistic victim advocacy. As of 2007, she is the host of Nancy Grace, a self-titled Headline News show, and was the host of Court TV's Closing Arguments. She also co-authored the book Objection! -- How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System.

Early life

Grace was born in Macon, Georgia to a working-class family. As a student, Grace was a fan of Shakespearean literature, and intended to become an English professor after graduating from college. However, after the murder of her fiancé, Keith Griffin, when she was 19, Grace decided to enroll in law school and went on to become a felony prosecutor and a supporter of victims' rights.

A law review member and graduate of the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University, Grace received her Masters in constitutional and criminal law from New York University. She has written articles and opinion pieces for legal periodicals, including the American Bar Association Journal. Grace worked as a clerk for a federal court judge and practiced antitrust and consumer protection law with the Federal Trade Commission. She taught litigation at the Georgia State University College of Law and business law at GSU's School of Business. As of 2006, she is part of Mercer University's board of trustees and adopted a section of the street surrounding the law school.

Career as prosecutor

Grace worked for nearly a decade in the Atlanta-Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney's office as Special Prosecutor. Her work focused on felony cases involving serial murder, serial rape, serial child molestation and arson. While Grace won nearly 100 felony cases at trial without any losses, some convictions were later overturned on appeal.

Grace decided to leave the prosecutors' office after the District Attorney she had been working under decided not to run for reelection.

Allegations of prosecutorial misconduct

The Supreme Court of Georgia has commented on Grace twice. First, in a 1994 heroin trafficking case, Bell v. State, the Court said that she "exceeded the wide latitude of closing argument" by drawing comparisons to unrelated murder and rape cases, and declared a mistrial.

In 1997, the court was more severe. Although its decision overturning the murder-arson conviction of businessman Wayne Weldon Carr in the death of his wife was caused primarily by other issues, the court made note of Grace's court actions, citing "inappropriate and illegal conduct in the course of the trial."

• Her opening statement in the case promised the jury evidence of physical abuse that she had to know would never be admissible because that entire aspect of the case had already been excluded by the judge.
• Subpoenas that contained hearing dates Grace knew to be false.
• Failure to disclose a full witness list to the defense in a timely fashion.
• Showing a chart during closing arguments that falsely stated a defense expert had not contradicted the state's case on a key issue.
• Also, during closing argument, "vouching" for the case by telling the jury she herself believed Carr to be guilty.
• And finally, performing two illegal searches of Carr's house, including one during which she was accompanied by a CNN camera crew.

While the court said its reversal was not due to these transgressions, since the case had turned primarily on circumstantial evidence, it nevertheless concluded "the conduct of the prosecuting attorney in this case demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness, and was inexcusable." Carr was freed in 2004 when a judge ruled Fulton County had waited too long to retry him.

Courts that have upheld convictions on cases Grace was involved with have been critical of her conduct. In a 2005 opinion, a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said Grace "played fast and loose" with her ethical duties and failed to "fulfill her responsibilities" as a prosecutor in the 1990 triple murder trial of Herbert Connell Stephens. She failed to turn over evidence that pointed to other suspects to his defense. The court noted that it was "difficult to conclude that Grace did not knowingly" elicit false testimony from a police investigator that there were no other suspects despite strong evidence to the contrary.

Career as broadcaster

After leaving the Fulton County prosecutors' office, Grace was approached by and accepted an offer from Court TV founder Steven Brill to do a legal commentary show alongside Johnnie Cochran. When Cochran left the show, Grace was moved to a solo trial coverage show on CourtTV. In 2005, she began hosting a regular primetime legal analysis show on CNN Headline News in addition to her CourtTV show. On May 9, 2007, Grace announced that she will be leaving CourtTV to focus more on her CNN Headline News Program and charity work. She did her last show on Court TV on June 19,2007

The Foundation of American Women in Radio & Television has presented Nancy Grace with two Gracie Awards for her Court TV show.

Controversial broadcasts

Grace's CNN show has been criticized for distorting, oversimplifying and sensationalizing complex legal issues. Specifically, Grace has received strong criticism for her public comments about ongoing cases such as the Michael Jackson trial, the Scott Peterson trial, the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, and the John Mark Karr story.

Suicide of interviewee

In 2006, Grace was involved in an incident reported heavily in U.S. and international media when a 21-year-old woman, Melinda Duckett, committed suicide following an interview conducted by Grace concerning the disappearance of Duckett's 2-year-old son.

Grace interviewed Duckett less than two weeks after the child went missing, questioning Duckett for her perceived lack of openness regarding her son's disappearance, asking Duckett "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?" Duckett appeared confused and was unable to answer whether she had taken a polygraph test. When Grace asked her "why" she could not account for specific details, Duckett began to reply "Because I was told not to", to which Grace responded "Ms Duckett, you are not telling us for a reason. What is the reason? You refuse to give even the simplest facts of where you were with your son before he went missing. It is day twelve...." According to the CNN transcript, Duckett replied, "(INAUDIBLE) with all media. It's not just there, just all media. Period." Grace then moved on to a media psychologist who explained to Grace that Duckett was "skirting around the issue."

The next day before the airing of the show, Duckett shot herself, a death which relatives claim was influenced by media scrutiny, particularly from Grace. Speaking to the The Orlando Sentinel, Duckett's grandfather Bill Eubank said, "Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end... She was not one anyone ever would have thought of to do something like this." CNN has also been criticized for allowing the show to air in the wake of Duckett's suicide. Police investigating the case had not named Melinda Duckett as a suspect in the case at the time, but after her suicide the police did say that she, as nearly all parents are in missing-child cases, was a suspect from the beginning.

In an interview with "Good Morning America," Nancy Grace said in reaction to events that "If anything, I would suggest that guilt made her commit suicide. To suggest that a 15 or 20 minute interview can cause someone to commit suicide is focusing on the wrong thing." She then said while she sympathized with the family, she knew from her own experience as a victim of crime that such people look for somebody else to blame.

While describing it as an "extremely sad development," Janine Iamunno, a spokeswoman for Grace, said that her program would continue to follow the case as they had a "responsibility to bring attention to this case in the hopes of helping find Trenton Duckett." Grace herself however said "I do not feel that our show is to blame for what happened to Melinda Duckett... The truth... is not always nice or polite or easy to go down. Sometimes it's harsh, and it hurts".

On November 21, 2006, thesmokinggun.com exposed pending litigation on behalf of the estate of Melinda Duckett, asserting a wrongful death claim against CNN and Grace. The attorney for the estate alleges that Grace should be held responsible for the suicide and traumatizing the family, regardless of whether it is ultimately determined that Duckett murdered her own son.

Death of Anna Nicole Smith

Grace's show did regular and extensive coverage on Anna Nicole Smith through 2006, when Smith's son, Daniel, died.

On February 21, 2007, Grace said that the judge handling the paternity case over Smith's daughter was not following any type of rules in the courtroom. Grace physically threw a book, representing a rule book, and stated that there were no rules used in the courtroom and with that, it was not representing our justice system.

Grace was not the only one to criticize the Judge Larry Seidlin's bizarre behavior, most legal experts did. The trial was frequently called a "circus", with CNN.com publishing an article called "If Anna Nicole Smith case is a circus, judge is ringmaster". He called all lawyers by their states, instead of names; called Anna Nicole Smith's mother "mama", etc. When delivering his verdict, he cried and was sometimes hard to understand. Grace bashed him for this.

Elizabeth Smart kidnapping

During the Smart case, when suspect Richard Ricci was arrested by police on the basis that he had a criminal record and had worked on the Smarts' home, Grace immediately and repeatedly proclaimed on CourtTV and CNN's Larry King that Ricci "was guilty", although there was little evidence to support this claim. She also suggested publicly that Ricci's girlfriend was involved in the coverup of his alleged crime. Grace continued to accuse Ricci, though he has since died.

It was later revealed that Smart was kidnapped by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, two individuals with whom Richard Ricci had no connection.

When Grace was specifically confronted on CourtTV seven months later as to whether she was 'incorrect' that Ricci "was guilty", and whether she felt bad about it in any way, she stated that Ricci was a known ex-con, a known felon, and brought suspicion on himself "so who could blame anyone for claiming he was the perpetrator". When Larry King asked her about the matter she equated criticism of herself with criticism of the police in the case. She said: "I'm not letting you take the police with me on a guilt trip."

On July 19, 2006, Grace interviewed Smart, who appeared on behalf of a bill requiring sex offenders to register with their state of residence. Despite Smart's objection, Grace pressed Smart with questions about her abduction, relenting only when Smart said, "I really—I really—to be frankly honest, I really don't appreciate you bringing all this up." Grace also seemed to look upon Smart's age of abduction (14 years old) as a "little 14 year old girl" and it being "hard for a little 14 year old girl to react the way an adult might imagine they'd react under those circumstances". By the age of 14, a girl is generally not described as "little" anymore and usually has a sense of responsibility similar to that of an adults.

The Michael Jackson trial

During the investigation related to the Jackson case, police confiscated an art book from his residence titled The Boy: A Photographic Essay which contained nude photographs. Grace considered the possession of the book to be proof of the guilt of Michael Jackson. When discussing the Jackson case on air she would often be seen taking out the book and talking about the pictures of naked boys in the book. If a guest was defending Jackson, she would use the book as a prop in front of her face, and repeatedly mention that she was too busy looking at the naked photographs in the book found in Jackson's residence to hear what the guest was saying. Grace insisted that there is no difference between a legal art book with nudes and child pornography.

Duke Lacrosse case

A video montage on The Daily Show (12 April 2007) showed Grace repeatedly taking the side of the rape accuser in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, and regularly changing her logic regarding the use of DNA data. When talking to Stephen Miller of the Duke Conservative Union, who expressed concern that the students may have been falsely accused, Grace shouted "Oh Good Lord!" and then proceeded to say, "You are saying that...your first problem is two innocent people?" Also in the montage, on June 9, 2006, a guest commented that the filings by the defense showed reasonable doubt. Grace accused them of prematurely taking sides, and then said, "Why don't we all just move to Nazi Germany, where we don't have a justice system and a jury of one's peers?" On 12 April 2007 North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dismissed all the charges against the three defendants. That night Nancy Grace did not appear on her show; instead, guest host Jane Velez-Mitchell presented. She has not yet commented on the dismissal and her public statements regarding this case.

Chris Benoit case

While covering the murder-suicide case involving World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler Chris Benoit and his family, Grace made several inaccurate statements about the wrestler and demonstrated a severe lack of knowledge or research into the topic, suggesting that Benoit was depressed about being recently demoted from a wrestling "stable" that had not existed for years -- and in fact never existed in WWE -- and being transferred to a brand that he was not currently on She also presented a list of wrestlers who had died of drug or non-accidental causes before 45, which included the wrestlers Junkyard Dog who died in a car accident, Owen Hart who died in a well publicized freak accident, Bruiser Brody who was stabbed before a match and André the Giant, who had perished from heart failure due to his size in addition to Benoit's own wife

Other work

File:Nancy Grace - Objection.jpg

Nancy Grace's Objection! -- How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System

Grace co-authored the book, Objection! -- How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System which was published by Hyperion on June 8, 2005. According to an article first published by the New York Daily News during September 2006, Grace plagiarized 359 words spread across pages 204 and 205 in the book, lifted without indication from a 5 August 2002 article in the New York Times written by Sabra Chartrand. Hyperion, the book's publisher, accepted Grace's claim that the plagiarism was an "inadvertent error" but insisted that Grace send a letter to The Times to promise that the content would be corrected in future printings. Hyperion explained that under contract, Grace must hold the publisher harmless in the event that The Times would file a lawsuit against her. Grace reportedly declined the request.

Grace has also helped staff a hotline at an Atlanta battered women’s center for 10 years.

Personal life

Allegations regarding fiancé's murder

In March 2006 an article in the New York Observer suggested that Grace had embellished the story of her fiancé's murder and the ensuing trial to make it better support her image. The New York Observer researched the murder and found several apparent contradictions between the events and Grace's subsequent statements, including the following:

• Her fiancé, Keith Griffin, was shot not by a random stranger on the street, but by a former coworker, Tommy McCoy.
• McCoy did not have a prior criminal record and, rather than denying the crime, McCoy confessed the night of the murder.
• The jury deliberated for a few hours, not days, as Grace said.
• There was no ongoing string of appeals (McCoy's family did not want any). McCoy has only once filed a habeas petition, which was rejected.

Grace told the Observer she had not looked into the case in many years and "(tried) not to think about it". She said she made her previous statements about the case "with the knowledge I had."

In response to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's claims in a March 2007 Rolling Stone interview where he was quoted as saying, "Anybody who would embellish the story of their own fiancé's murder should spend that hour a day not on television but in a psychiatrist's chair," Grace stated: "I did not put myself through law school and fight for all those years for crime victims to waste one minute of my time, my energy and my education in a war of words with Keith Olbermann, whom I've never met or had any disagreement with....I feel we have X amount of time on Earth, and that when we give into our detractors or spend needless time on silly fights, I think that's abusing the chance we have to do something good."

Marriage and motherhood

In April 2007, Grace married David Linch, an Atlanta investment banker in a small private ceremony. The two had met while she was studying at Mercer College in the '70s. Grace, who had given up on marriage after the death of her fiance said, "We've been in touch all these years and a lot of time we were separated by geography and time," she says. "It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to get married. I told my family only two days before the wedding."

On June 26, 2007 an emotional Grace announced on her CNN talk show that her life had "taken a U-turn" in that she is pregnant and is expecting twins with her husband in January 2008. On September 27, Grace announced the sexes of her twins, a boy and girl.

Grace in popular culture

Parodies and characters based on Grace

Grace has been parodied on several comedy programs, and several charactes based on her persona have appeared on various television shows. Among the shows featuring parodies of Grace or a character based on Grace:

• A parody of Grace appeared on the television show Boston Legal in the form of a reporter named Gracie Jane. Most of the character's appearances consisted of her shouting "Guilty, guilty, guilty!" into the camera.
• Grace has been parodied several times by Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live. She was also parodied in the TV Funhouse cartoon "Divertor," repeating the line, "I think [defendant's name] should fry!"
• Her CNN show is a regular clip on the E! network show The Soup with Joel McHale often poking fun at her way of talking.
• Grace inspired a lawyer character named Grace Nancier on the soap opera Passions.
• Grace also inspired a character in the Fox network's drama series Justice (TV series).
• Grace is parodied in episodes 5 and 17 of the NBC drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

"Law and Order" connection

The Law & Order programs, which are legal procedural programs, often base their fictional stories on real-life events and have featured stories based on Grace on several occasions.

In an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, an overzealous reporter causes the mother of a kidnapped son to commit suicide, much like the Melinda Duckett situation.. She has also been parodied repeatedly on Law & Order: Criminal Intent by a character named Faith Yancy who hosts a similar talk show.

Grace herself appeared on May 22, 2007, in the season finale of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She played herself and was featured opposite Star Jones Reynolds.

External links

• CNN's Nancy Grace Show
• CNN's Bio of Nancy Grace
• CNN Transcript: Interview with Larry King
• CNN Transcript: "Nancy Grace" Show
• "Reading Nancy Grace", by Said Shirazi. February 24, 2006
• Nancy Grace fan site
• Unofficial Nancy Grace Blog