Suspicion Nation: the Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It

Publisher Marketing: A provocative examination of race, gun laws, and violence that exposes how the state of Florida bungled the Trayvon Martin case through new interviews and revelations about the trial. Many thought the election of our first African-American president put an end to the conversation about race in this country, and that America had moved into a post-racial era of equality. Then, on the night of February 26, 2012, a black seventeen-year-old boy walking to a friend s home carrying only his cell phone, candy, and a fruit drink was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch coordinator. The public, especially African-American journalists and activists, clamored for the media to pay attention to the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. The July 2013 trial of Zimmerman for murder captivated the nation, as did his eventual and shocking acquittal. Any belief that we lived in a post-racial America was shattered. In her provocative and landmark audiobook "Suspicion Nation," Lisa Bloom, who covered the trial from gavel to gavel, posits that none of this was a surprise: Our laws, culture, and blind spots created the conditions that led to Trayvon Martin s death and made George Zimmerman s acquittal by far the most likely outcome. A trial lawyer herself, Bloom details how the winnable case was lost through new in-depth interviews of key trial participants. The only nonwhite juror tells her story of loneliness and isolation during the trial. The state s medical examiner describes a scientific theory he wanted to raise during his testimony but could not. Rachel Jeantel, the state s star witness and the last person to speak to Trayvon Martin, reveals how poorly the state prepared her to testify and what went through her mind when she was on the stand. And a new examination of Trayvon s school suspensions raises troubling questions about racial profiling against the teenager at his own high school. And the injustice continues, as more shootings, especially of unarmed African Americans, plague our nation. Gun rights have been expanded to surreal extremes, as the U. S. has the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world and more gun deaths than any other developed country. Despite the strides America has made, racial inequality persists in employment, housing, education, the media, and most institutions. And perhaps most destructively of all, racial biases run deep in every phase of our criminal justice system. The Trayvon Martin case was iconic. It forced the country to stare unflinchingly into a family s grief and the biases of a nation that created the conditions for it. "Suspicion Nation" expertly captures the state of a country conflicted not only about the Trayvon Martin injustice but divided over issues of race, violence, and gun legislation." Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 06/30/2014 (EAN 9781480584273, Compact Disc) Shelf Awareness 03/14/2014 (EAN 9781619023277, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2014 (EAN 9781619023277, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Bloom, Lisa Lisa Bloom is the legal analyst for The Today Show, NBC News, and Avvo.com. A daily fixture on American television for the last decade, Lisa regularly appears on CNN, HLN, and MSNBC. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Swagger and Think, and she has written numerous articles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, The National Law Journal, CNN.com, The Daily Beast, and others. She lives in Los Angeles where she runs her law firm, The Bloom Firm. Contributor Bio:  Toobin, Jeffrey Jeffrey Toobin has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1993 and is the senior legal analyst for CNN. In 2000 he received an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elian Gonzalez case. He is the author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, which spent more than four months on the New York Times bestseller list. Before joining The New Yorker, Toobin served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Brooklyn, New York. He lives in Manhattan.