Nancy Grace

Nancy Grace
Born	(1958-10-23) October 23, 1958 Macon, Georgia, United States
Occupation	American talk show host

Nancy Grace (born October 23, 1958) is an American talk show host and former prosecutor who is a member of the Church of Scientology. She frequently discusses issues from the victims' rights standpoint. As of 2006, she is the host of Nancy Grace, a self-titled Headline News show, and the host of Court TV's Closing Arguments. She has 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. Her life was changed after the murder of her fiancé. The incident motivated her to enroll in law school and eventually to become a felony prosecutor and a supporter of victims' rights.

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. At trial, she won nearly one hundred felony convictions with no losses. Some convictions were later overturned by higher courts.

A Law Review graduate of the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University, Grace received her Master of Laws in constitutional and criminal law from New York University. She has written articles and opinion pieces for legal periodicals, notably 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.

Mismatched statements regarding fiancé's murder trial

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.

• Her fiancé, Keith Griffin, was shot not by a random stranger on the street, but by a former coworker.
• Tommy McCoy, who was convicted of the killing, did not have a prior criminal record.
• Tommy McCoy was younger than Grace said he was.
• Rather than constantly denying the crime, McCoy confessed the night of the murder.
• The jury deliberated for a few hours, not days, as Grace said.
• Prosecutors asked for the death penalty without consulting Grace. Both the defense and the prosecutors believe that the jury chose life imprisonment instead of death penalty because McCoy was mildly retarded in addition to having no prior criminal record.
• 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.
• The killing occurred in 1979, not 1980.

Grace told the Observer she had not looked into the case in many years and "(tried) not to think about it". She said she was told initially that McCoy had denied the crime (the officer who took him into custody said he remained silent during his entire trip to jail). She said she made her previous statements about the case "with the knowledge I had." Her mother told the paper she has repeatedly advised her daughter to let it go.

Prosecutor

Commentary from state and federal Appellate courts

Although Grace never lost a felony case at trial, a few of her convictions have been overturned on appeal.

The Supreme Court of Georgia has commented on Grace twice, first in a 1994 heroin trafficking case, Bell v. State, in which it was said that she "exceeded the wide latitude of closing argument" by referring to the defendant's prior convictions for violent felonies which were not at issue in the case (Bell v. State, 263 Ga. 776 (1994)).

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.

Broadcaster

Public criticism of potential media bias

Grace has received strong criticism for her public comments about ongoing trials such as the Michael Jackson trial, the Scott Peterson trial, the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, and the John Mark Karr story.

As a prosecutor Grace withheld evidence in numerous cases and was cited a record 102 times in her career for dismissal from the bench. She finally quit prosecuting when it was revealed Grace would take evidence home with her to "examine" in her own house. She had been attacked in public and death threats abound.

Her comments, regarding certain cases (The Duke College Trial, The Smart case et al), have been heavily critiqued as rash and unnecessary by politically "left" groups, as well as by members of the legal community. The eventual suicide of a guest on her show (see below), raised questions as to whether or not her legal opinion was based on concrete fact or on heresay conjured by an inventive mind.

Her neutrality as a court reporter has been questioned repeatedly.

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.

Duckett reported her son missing to police on August 27 stating that she returned to her son's room after watching television with friends to find his bed empty and a 10-inch slit in his window screen .

Grace interviewed Duckett less than two weeks later, banging her desk and 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 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..." Grace then allowed Duckett a stumbling reply before cutting to a media psychologist.

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 wasn't 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. Melinda Duckett is now, according to Florida police, the primary suspect in her son's disappearance. Investigators are still piecing together a timeline of where Duckett and her son were within the last 24 hours before he went missing.

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 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. The complaint asserts a wrongful death claim against CNN and Grace. Senior Legal Analyst Susan Filan wrote an article stating that "Ms. Grace, in the same suit, is both the angel and the devil... Nancy Grace, of course, brought so much publicity to this case that there has been a huge outpouring of support from the community and the nation... But whatever happened in Melinda Duckett’s life prior to her one hour with Nancy Grace, all that happened thereafter is Nancy Grace’s fault, according to the law suit."

The death of Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole Smith coverage began in 2006 when her son, Daniel, died. Grace has covered Anna Nicole's death since February 8, 2007 – the day she died in the Hard Rock Hotel – and has taken Howard K. Stern's side in the case involving Anna Nicole's daughter, Dannielynn; Grace has taken the side of Anna Nicole's mother at other times, however.

On February 21, 2007, Grace told her viewers that the judge handling the case was not following any type of rules in the courtroom. Grace physically threw a book, representing a rule book, twice during her hour-long show. She stated that there were no rules used in the courtroom and with that, it was not representing our justice system.

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 malign 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 Richard 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."

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 team scandal, and regularly changing her logic regarding the use of DNA data. On 12th 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, a guest host presented. She has not as of 13 April 2007 commented on the dismissal and her public statements re. this case.

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 two pages in the book. 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 prints. Grace reportedly declined the request and it was not made clear whether or not Grace intends on correcting the error in future copies. Hyperion explained that under contract, Grace must hold the publisher harmless in the event that The Times would file a lawsuit against her.

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

Grace in popular culture

• 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.
• Grace inspired a character modeled after her in the soap opera Passions.

Footnotes

• 11th Circuit Court: 'Nancy Grace 'Played Fast and Loose' With Ethics'
• 11th Circuit Court: Opinion on Grace's misconduct
• Nancy Grace Interview
• Dana, Rebecca; March 6, 2006; Did Nancy Grace, Crimebuster, Muddy her Myth?, New York Observer.

External links

• CNN's Nancy Grace Show
• CNN's Bio of Nancy Grace
• CNN Transcript: Interview with Larry King
• CNN Transcript: "Nancy Grace" Show
• CourtTV: Bio of Nancy Grace
• "Reading Nancy Grace", by Said Shirazi.
• Juxtaposing the Nancy Grace show suicide with the Jenny Jones Show homicide
• Interview with Geneva Carr who plays Nancy Grace on Law & Order
• Nancy Grace impersonation on Saturday Night Live