George Zimmerman juror dropped by literary agent, won't write book

George Zimmerman juror dropped by literary agent, won’t write book

By Carolyn Kellogg

July 16, 2013 7:55 AM PT

Maybe a book by a juror in the Trayvon Martin murder trial isn’t such a good idea after all.

On Monday it was announced that one of the jurors who had found George Zimmerman not guilty had landed a literary agent, Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management. Juror B37 -- who told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she had “no doubt” that Zimmerman feared for his life in the moments before he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager -- planned to write a book about the trial with her husband, an attorney.

As with the verdict itself, that announcement was met with a surprised, angry outcry. “Dirtbags!” wrote a typical commentor on our post. On Twitter, commenters spoke directly to agent Sharlene Martin. “Why are you allowing a juror to exploit a child’s life? Why are you publishing her book?” asked @brassiest on Twitter. Another user, @ErinMurray99 wrote, “You know that the stains from blood money don’t wash off, right?”

By 10 p.m. California time, Martin had had enough. “After careful consideration of the book project with Zimmerman #JurorB37, I have decided to rescind my offer of representation,” she announced on Twitter.

While some of the responses to that tweet were still angry, the bulk of the replies took on a different tone. A typical one came from @GinaMontana_: “thank you. The Martins have suffered enough & the people who rendered an unjust verdict should not be able to then profit.”

Juror B37 released a statement saying she had changed her mind about the book. “Now that I am returned to my family and to society in general, I have realized that the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was called to sit on this jury,” the juror said. “I realize it was necessary for our jury to be sequestered in order to (protect) our verdict from unfair outside influence, but that isolation shielded me from the depth of pain that exists among the general public over every aspect of this case.”

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