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CNN Headline News dynamo Nancy Grace has no love for defense attorneys -- especially those who know that their clients have killed people but use every possible legal maneuver to get them off or get them better deals. In other words, for doing their jobs.
"What they do is entirely acceptable under the Constitution and the court of law, but I just don't personally like it," Grace says. She quickly notes that her best friend is Renee Rockwell, a defense lawyer and regular on Nancy Grace.
But, she adds, "when people say defense lawyers are just doing their jobs and are necessary for our system, you could say that about a lot of people who claim they're just doing their jobs. You could say that about the guards at Auschwitz."
Such passionate views have won her talk show, which celebrates its first anniversary this week, a loyal and growing fan base. Grace also has been drawn into the media spotlight, from profiles in People and Vanity Fair to parodies on NBC's Saturday Night Live and on ABC's Boston Legal, where a blond bulldog lawyer was named Gracie Jane.
"For Grace, anyone who has been charged must be guilty," TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote last year in The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. Grace "never goes a day without blowing a gasket over whatever case she happens to be discussing ... throwing journalistic objectivity in the nearest dumpster, slamming defense attorneys as pimps in fancy suits and declaring defendants guilty because, well, they just seem guilty."
If parodies and barbs bother her, Grace, 45, doesn't let on. "The bottom line is, I don't care what they say, and if I respond to any of it, it makes it worse. If I were to let myself care, it might affect what I do, and when you start trying to change even a little bit what you're about, then you start chipping away. And pretty soon there's nothing left of what you are."
Grace is not alone in tapping into the popularity of true crime. The genre -- and high-profile cases such as Scott Peterson's conviction for killing his pregnant wife, Laci -- has drawn ratings success for other cable hosts such as Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, network morning shows and newsmagazines.
And though some critics argue that cable news' particular fascination with seamy cases is part of a drift toward tabloidization, Grace points out the Peterson case revealed that homicide is one of the top causes of death among pregnant women.
"I consider it an epidemic," Grace says. "Call me crazy, but if the victims were all middle-aged socially upward white males, there would be pandemonium."
Grace has been a self-styled victims' advocate for 25 years, ever since her fiance, Keith Griffin, was killed during a robbery. His death prompted Grace to become a prosecutor in Georgia, which led to hosting Court TV's Closing Arguments. She still hosts the show two hours a day for a total of three hours of live TV.
Grace premiered Feb. 21, 2005, the first program change on a channel that had been strictly a newswheel for 23 years. Ratings for her 8 p.m. ET/5 PT time slot have increased 181%, from an average of 216,000 to 606,000 viewers, the most growth of any cable news show in the past year.
Still, those numbers pale in comparison to anything on network TV; in her time slot, Fox News powerhouse Bill O'Reilly more than quadruples her ratings.
Next month the network is expected to expand the show to weekends, a testament to her draw, Headline News chief Ken Jautz says. "What we're putting on is a smart legal show that has a healthy crime element to it but talks about other legal issues and cases that do not get covered elsewhere. I also think it taps into peoples' sense of security."
Says Grace: "If I have an appeal, I think it's that I'm the real deal. I'm not pretending to be anything but a crime victim who went to law school and tried a lot of cases."
While taping a new state-by-state look at unsolved crimes for tonight's edition (she's usually live), Grace teared up as a Florida mother talked about her daughter, a college student who went for a jog in 1989 and vanished.
Grace's eyes glistened as the mother talked about how, when driving down the street, she sometimes sees young women who resemble her daughter and thinks for an instant her child is alive.
"If anyone can hear those stories and not tear up, then I think they're the ones with the problem, not me," Grace says.
While researching her book, Objection!, last year, Grace says she learned that "our Founding Fathers wanted courthouses to be big enough for the whole community to come in and watch justice unfold. I think that's what our whole show is all about."
E-mail pjohnson@usatoday.com
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