The Disgrace of Nancy Grace - when Cameras in the Courtroom Are No Longer "Fun"

Poetic justice may be sweet revenge when someone has been "hoisted by their own petard" as in the case with the infamous Nancy Grace. A host on CNN's HLN (Headline News) and previously as a so-called legal commentator on Court TV and a former prosecutor, Nancy Grace has spent her television career using the media as her special inside track to exact her personal brand of justice against non-convicted defendants, without regard to facts, evidence, prima facie truths, or even a court of law.

Nancy Grace has made it an art form by essentially writing her own book of law (hereby known as "Make It Up"), and then dispensing her own definition of justice to even those legally found "not guilty". By doing so, she has made any of the Grand Inquisitors throughout history look pale by comparison.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, Grace has done a complete disservice to those who have believed her lies and innuendoes made against others by muddying the waters between innocence and guilt and between the inherent differences of truth and facts against her outright lies and false statements.

Nancy Grace has always been a proponent of "cameras in the courtroom", even while ignoring what actually occurred in the cases. Court TV has filed multiple suits over the years to make sure the public could see trials, but also because without it, Court TV was less than effective as an entertainment show with Nancy Grass as one of its stars.

When she interviewed Melinda Duckett in 2006, the mother of still missing 2 year old Trenton Duckett, Grace's accusatory and outwardly malicious non-stop questioning have led the Duckett family to believe Nancy Grace herself created the situation where the mother committed suicide the very next day.

However, when Nancy Grace herself faced the possibility of national coverage by those same cameras in the lawsuit against her, she attempted through her defense attorneys to shut them down in order to save her any possible embarrassment or harassment from the news media and the public at large.

One can only hope that those defense attorneys remember that it was Nancy Grace who called defense attorneys "pigs" and compared them to "Nazi concentration camp guards" in the book she co-wrote called "Objection! - How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System", published in 2005.

An extremely and truly ironic response from someone who wanted and used videotaped footage and real-time live cameras against defendants in order to accuse and convict him or her in the court of public opinion and maybe, in at least one case, had given the defendant a death sentence minus the trappings of a judicial court of law and sans a jury of the defendant's peers.

Unfortunately for Nancy Grace, the judge in this case ruled Nancy Grace's deposition by the Duckett family attorneys could be videotaped; however, sadly for the public at large, her answers cannot be divulged to third parties without permission prior to the trial itself.

Again, one can only hope that those also infamous "anonymous sources" leak out her responses before the trial so she can receive the same "off the wall" consideration she has given every other defendant, guilty or innocent, who came within range of her gun sights.

Sources:
Nancy Grace can be videotaped, judge rules, by Stephen Hudak and Willoughby Mariano, Orlando Sentinel, January 26 2010
Nancy Grace Loses Fight to Ban Cameras From Deposition, by David Lohr, January 27 2010