Nancy Grace And Her Mouth From The South

Every weekday afternoon former prosecutor Nancy Grace comes down fiercely on the victim's side on Court TV's "Nancy Grace: Closing Arguments," and every night on Headline News.

Critics say she is abrasive and angry.

"I'm not angry," she told Sunday Morning correspondent Thalia Assuras. "I just want justice. Don't you want justice? Is there something wrong with that?"

Her ratings have doubled since the show's launch two years ago and brought Grace devout followers who praise her passion and compassion — people like Lucita Nixon of New York, whose daughter was found murdered last summer.

"She cares about people, victims especially," Nixon said. "The sincerity of her caring is there."

Grace came to Court TV from the Fulton County District Attorney's Office in Atlanta, where she worked as a special prosecutor for 10 years. She prosecuted numerous major felony cases — including some of the most heinous crimes, such as murder, rape and child molestation — and boasted a nearly perfect record.

She became a strong advocate for victims through the most tragic of circumstances: She was in college when her fiance Keith Griffin was murdered in 1980.

"He was gunned down," Grace said. "He was shot five times in the face, the neck and the back. The guy took a wallet. I think it had about $35 in it. And that was the whole case."

It was that "senseless act of violence" that forever altered Grace's perspective. She abandoned her plan to become an English professor. She went to law school instead.

After that, she began a crusading career. Some say Grace's style is over-the-top and even offensive. In an interview with Elizabeth Smart, the Utah girl who was abducted at age 14, Grace began questioning her about her ordeal rather than the sex offender legislation Smart was endorsing. Smart told her she felt uncomfortable.

"I feel bad, very bad that I asked a question that got her upset, but I certainly would never ask a victim, especially a young victim, a question that I thought would hurt them," Grace said.

Recently Grace made news when a mother of a missing boy committed suicide after facing tough questions from Grace in a telephone interview on her CNN show. By the end of the interview Grace was forcefully asking the mother, Melinda Duckett, "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?"

Grace, who is now being sued by Duckett's family, brushes off the suggestion that she drove her to suicide.

"You know what keeps me awake at night? Not what somebody thinks about me, but wondering where is Trenton Duckett," she said.

The local police said that Melinda Duckett is the only suspect in the case, but Grace said she gets no satisfaction from that because Trenton is still missing.

Grace's unique style has turned her into a TV caricature, on "Saturday Night Live," "Boston Legal," even "Law and Order: Criminal Intent." But a number of defense attorneys like Tom Mesereau are not amused

"She is not a newscaster and she's not a legal analyst," Mesereau, who successfully defended Michael Jackson on child molestation charges, said. "She is at best an entertainer. I do not have a problem with people with very different points of view from me, as long as they do it with integrity and with some knowledge. She was not coming from a place of integrity or knowledge. She wanted to spin ratings. She wanted to be outrageous."

Grace makes no bones about her view that Jackson was guilty and even now makes no apologies.

"If you don't have a problem with a 40-year-old man in his underwear in bed with a non-relative, 7 or 8 or 9 years old, that's your business. I have a problem with it," she said.

And as for all those defense attorneys who despise her, the feeling is mutual.

"I don't like juries having the wool pulled over their eyes," she said. "I don't think that's what the Constitution is about."

Grace wears her victims' advocate title with pride.

"I know what critics and detractors say, but I did not spend all these years in law school and in a courtroom and working with victims to bother to reply," she said. "I got this much time on Earth to do something and I will not be wasted responding to critics."