Nancy Grace’s wrath - real or not - has taken her far

Every performer has a gimmick. Nancy Grace’s gimmick is rage.

The former prosecutor, self-described “victims’ rights advocate” and host of talk programs on Court TV and CNN Headline News never goes a day without blowing a gasket over whatever case she happens to be discussing. It’s often a bloody homicide or creepy disappearance, the better to justify her quavering anger.

If you think I’m exaggerating, check out “Closing Arguments” (3 p.m. weekdays, Court TV) or “Nancy Grace” (5, 7 and 10 p.m. weekdays, CNN Headline News). There’s invariably a point at which Grace falls silent, her eyes narrow, her nostrils flare and her voice breaks as if fighting back tears.

Then she’s off and running, slamming defense attorneys as pimps in fancy suits and declaring defendants guilty because, well, they just seem guilty to her.

Sometimes Grace presents her rage as righteous solidarity with victims. On Court TV last November, while reporting that Scott Peterson had been found guilty of murdering his wife, Laci, and her unborn son, Conner, Grace held up a San Francisco Examiner headlined “Guilty” and said, in a cornball whisper: “Today, for this moment, there is justice for Laci and Conner.”

Other times, Grace’s rage has a taunting, playground edge. During the Michael Jackson trial this spring, she read explicit testimony from a child who rebuffed Jackson’s advances, interrupting herself to sneer, “… and then Michael started to cry!”

There’s an appetite for this kind of melodrama, and Grace satisfies it. Her CNN Headline News show doubled viewership in its time slot, becoming one of the top-rated hours on cable. There’s speculation that her bosses will move her to CNN’s flagship channel as soon as a current prime-time host’s contract expires. She has been mentioned as a candidate to replace CNN’s Larry King, who gave her airtime as a pundit and guest host.

Grace just published her first book, “Objection! How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System,” and has been promoting it all over TV for several weeks.

No matter what case she’s discussing, the conversation is ultimately about her: her passion, her sensitivity, her incorruptibility. It’s as if she’s playing herself in a movie about her life – a combination of “Erin Brockovich” and “Dirty Harry.”

Sadly, Grace’s anguish comes from a real place. In 1980, when she was studying English literature in college, a mugger shot her fiance to death two weeks before their wedding day.

This horrendous event inspired Grace to become a lawyer. She worked as an assistant district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., from 1987 to 1996, winning 100 criminal convictions and volunteering for a battered women’s hot line. Then she left government to take a job as a Court TV reporter.

Unfortunately, this inspirational story has a disturbing undertow; Grace has earned three high-profile rebukes for unprofessional or unethical conduct.

A 1994 Georgia Supreme Court decision overturning Grace’s conviction of a heroin trafficker found that she made an improper final argument. A 1997 Georgia Supreme Court decision overturning an arson-murder case found that she withheld information the defense was entitled to see.

And just two months ago, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a triple murder conviction won by Grace, but concluded that she played “fast and loose” with ethics and sat on evidence that might have resulted in an acquittal.

Grace hasn’t been shy about invoking her fiance’s death, often to defend indefensible propositions or short-circuit arguments she fears she might lose.

Last January, at a press conference with TV columnists in Los Angeles, a reporter asked Grace to defend her assertion that her shows call attention to important social ills, when she actually spends much of her airtime talking about the same handful of cases that the rest of the media is already obsessed with.

Grace once again recounted the story of her fiance’s murder and how it pushed her toward a career as a justice-seeker, her voice rising in outrage.

The answer had nothing to do with the question, but the message was clear: If you question me, you spit on my dead fiance.

It’s impossible to know how much of Grace’s flamboyant anger is organic and how much is shtick. It’s possible not even she can tell the difference anymore.

Either way, it represents a short-circuiting of reason, and a passionate embrace of the lynch mob mentality America has been grappling with for more than 200 years.

You’ve got to hand it to the woman: She knows what sells.