An angry backlash has forced a juror in the George Zimmerman murder case to abandon plans to write a book about her experience, as activists at the biggest civil rights group in the US tore up the agenda at their annual convention yesterday.
New York publishing house Martin Literary Management issued a statement saying it had rescinded its offer of co-operation to the middle-aged woman, known only as juror B37, “after careful consideration” in response to thousands of critical messages on social media. The woman gave a television interview on Monday night in which she revealed the jury was initially split over Mr Zimmerman’s guilt.
In Orlando, Florida, less than 30 miles from where Mr Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin dead last year, delegates at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People stepped up their pressure on the Obama administration to launch a federal prosecution against Mr Zimmerman.
New charges
Former officials from the US department of justice have been playing down the chances of new charges, which would require a prosecutors to prove Mr Zimmerman was motivated by race when he confronted and the fatally shot the teenager in a gated community in Sanford, Florida, in February 2012.
But attorney general Eric Holder raised hopes about the prospects of a fresh prosecution on Monday when he said he shared concerns about the "tragic, unnecessary death" of Mr Martin.
Any decision about a federal trial is likely to take months.
Protests continued around the US in the wake of the verdict, with 14 arrests at demonstrations that turned violent in Los Angeles late on Monday.
Juror B37 appeared to express regret for pursuing a book deal. The woman, one of the six female jurors who on Saturday acquitted Mr Zimmerman, released a statement saying she had realised the sensitivities surrounding the three-week trial, during which the jury was sequestered, only after returning home.
With her face blacked out, she appeared in a television interview on Monday night, revealing that only three members of the six-woman panel had initially voted to acquit Mr Zimmerman. Two thought he was guilty of manslaughter, and one believed he was guilty of the original charge, second-degree murder.
The woman said she and fellow jurors believed Mr Martin threw the first punch in the fatal confrontation, leaving Mr Zimmerman in fear of his life. That, she said, was the determining factor in why the three changed their minds.
She insisted justice had been served. “George Zimmerman is a man whose heart was in the right place, but just got displaced by the vandalism in the neighbourhood . . . he wanted to catch these people so badly that he went above and beyond what he really should have done,” she said.
"It just went terribly wrong," she added. "Things just got out of hand. I think he's guilty of not using good judgment." – (Guardian service)