TV Host Nancy Grace Will Be Taped in Court Deposition, Judge Rules

Jan. 27, 2010— -- CNN's Nancy Grace will be questioned in front of video cameras, a judge has ruled, dismissing a request that her deposition in a wrongful death lawsuit not be recorded.

The high-profile cable TV personality hosts HLN's highest-rated show. Her legal team has already taped the depositions of the plaintiff's witnesses in the suit brought by the estate of a former guest on the "Nancy Grace" show.

"The judge made the right call," criminal defense attorney Dana Cole told "Good Morning America" today.

Grace is defending herself against the estate of Melinda Duckett, the mother of missing 2-year-old Leesburg, Fla., boy Trenton Duckett, which is suing the legal the commentator and her show for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" that led Duckett, her family says, to commit suicide in 2006.

"The key issue really is what was she told before going on the show," Cole said of the merits of the lawsuit. "Nancy has never met a victim she didn't love and never met a suspect she didn't want to tar and feather."

Grace, he noted, is famously tough on suspects and defendants, so much so that she is sometimes known in criminal defense circles as "Nancy Disgrace," Cole said.

"So the question is how was this interview pitched" to Duckett, he said. "Was there some sort of deception involved in getting her on the show?"

For his part, Cole said he does not think Grace went too far, noting that she seemed sympathetic to Duckett in the beginning and began to pressure her only when Duckett was less than forthcoming.

"That's when Nancy went in for the kill, so to speak," he said. "Her defense is that, 'Hey, I'm a reporter. I have a right to ask any question I want.'"