In this context, the shooting of an unarmed black 17-year-old by a half-white, half-Hispanic neighborhood-watch captain named George Zimmerman could wield outsized influence in deciding who runs the country for the next four years.

“Elections [here] are won by very narrow margins,” said Lance deHaven-Smith, professor of public administration at Florida State University and author of The Battle for Florida: An Annotated Compendium of Materials from the 2000 Presidential Election.

“The main thing that determines the outcome is the turnout,” he said. Given the mix of a racially charged killing and the nation’s first black president, deHaven-Smith said, “you automatically have a connection and a parallel to draw. So people, particularly black voters, they registered in very large numbers in 2008, and the big question has been, will they turn out” in 2012?

Martin was killed in central Florida, the swing region of this swing state, where rural and conservative North Florida gives way to urban, more liberal South Florida. Here, cosmopolitan Orlando anchors what is known to politicos as the I-4 corridor, where the highway threads together Tampa, Orlando, and Daytona Beach, as well as communities of commuting suburbanites, citrus farmers, cow and horse ranchers, and Hispanics, especially Puerto Ricans.

But on Monday, attorneys for a consortium of media outlets—including The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN and McClatchy—filed a nine-page motion opposing the sealing order, but even that motion itself appeared to be sealed.  (Newsweek and The Daily Beast were not a part of the consortium.) Reporters seeking copies from the Seminole County court clerk were turned down on account of the order.

The five-story criminal court building is just down the road from the large detention center where Zimmerman is currently being held in Sanford.

The Daily Beast obtained the media consortium’s motion to unseal the documents from Holland & Knight, the law firm for the consortium. The motion argues that Zimmerman “must show that the release of such additional information will deprive him of his right to a fair trial, which is a showing he cannot make.”

Scott Ponce, a Holland & Knight partner, said it is not unprecedented to seal a docket, but that it is unusual to do it without giving the public or the media a chance to weigh in. “For an initial hearing,” Ponce said, “for a judge to seal something, having not seen the records, and just say, ‘We are going to seal the records,’ is unusual.”

Trayvon Martin was violated by the cruelty of gun violence, but was violated again by privilege, power, and the cruelty of a system that believes black boys, whether on the honor roll or college bound, are suspect.  Black boys in hoodies are aesthetically and unconsciously calling for violent action.  Black boys who do not “acquiesce” to strange men without “judicial” authority asking for information or a passbook are considered instigators.  Black boys who are late to school, or laugh with friends, and engage in silly teenage behavior are “examples of gangster culture.” 

None of my white friends will ever have to worry about his or her child in the same manner.  My friend, whose child snowboards and wears baggy pants, will always be seen as a bright college-bound young man who loves to dress like Sean White.  My friend, whose son plays football and wears a hoodie, is viewed as a college-bound jock.  My friend whose son is an honor student, who is loud and, at times, irreverent yet bound for college, is viewed as “artistic.”  My son, smart, creative, funny, caring and witty, will be viewed as a threat, suspect or suspicious, by certain sectors of society.

It is in this context, when I send my child to school, when we walk together, play ball together, ride to church together, that I look at him and I must tell him the truth of being a black man in America. We belong to a fraternity created by the dysfunction of history and the immaturity of this democracy.  I will tell him: “Live your life to the fullest and to the highest. But the specter of race still haunts our lives.”

We are all Trayvon Martin. We are all Trayvon Martin’s parents. All of us, whether called black, brown, white, yellow, sprit-filled, agnostic, or atheist must dismantle the fraternity of racism and build an altar of love and justice. We need a democratic environment where children can be children and guns and gun violence will no longer be a part of our national dialogue. We honor Trayvon Martin and his memory when we seek justice and create a country where the grief of the Martin family will be an uncommon occurrence in American democracy.

Guest, who is African-American, says he has been haunted by Martin’s story since it surfaced in the news just over a month ago. He has a 17-year-old son himself, and says he’s suffered several sleepless nights thinking about the avoidable tragedy. “My biggest message is that I don’t want us to ever forget this,” he says, explaining that he decided to paint the incident as a form of therapy.  “I wanted to paint something that would probably alter people’s consciousness.”

Guest says that he plans to use the money from the sale of the works (which he estimates will be priced at around $40,000 each) to support Trayvon Martin’s younger brother, who’s still a three and a half. (According to the Martin’s family lawyer, the boy’s mother does not want to release his name.) Guest says he suspects that the young boy will grow to feel tortured as a result of his brother’s death—since Trayvon went to get him Skittles from the store that night. “I want to let him know that I have his first semester covered,” Guest says of the boy. “I want him to know that the only way around being tortured is that you begin to make a difference.” He pauses. “Maybe he’ll study law.”

Even with the best legal advice, which Zimmerman now seems to have in the person of Mark O’Mara, the decision is not going to be an easy one. This is not to say the legal team of Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig (that dropped him like he was on fire at a very public press conference) are not first rate, they are; but they also are pitbulls who realized the media attention focused on the case would have made them household names—which it turn might have made them less eager to convince their client to cop a plea. They wouldn’t want the hot glare of the media to go away, as attested to by how long they answered questions at their press conference. O’Mara was commenting on the case for television before he took it for himself.

When all is said and done, whatever lawyer represents him, that mouthpiece will go home to his own bed after the case is over—but Zimmerman might not. He is going to have to step the number off all by himself if he loses, and a lonely existence it will be. There are a lot of prisoners in America wailing about the bad deal their lawyers talked them into taking.

Currently Zimmerman is being held in what’s known as "administrative segregation," or whatever they call it at the Polk Correctional Facility where he’s being housed. A bit of solitude can be soothing, but after protracted periods lack of regular basic human contact plays tricks on the mind. Even if one of the hacks, or the occasional trustee who’s pushing the food cart three times a day, recognizes his existence and briefly speaks to him, it’s not like the sense of community all human beings need to maintain their sanity. After serving three months in isolation, I discovered deprivation is a real bitch—and I knew that the maximum sentence I was looking at was a deuce.

If Zimmerman rolls the dice and loses, he’ll face years of such solitude since he won’t be allowed in the general population of any prison he’s sent to for years. Just his presence on the prison yard could cause rioting as black convicts sought to take him out and skinheads aimed to protect him as one of their own, or at least their enemy’s enemy. The one place in America where segregation might make sense is in penal institutions—one for whites, one for blacks, and one for Hispanics.

“I will have to be more mindful of my words from now on,’’ Fulton tells The Daily Beast. “I’m not used to being under the microscope every day like this. George Zimmerman stalked and killed my son that night. I’m not confused about what happened to my child.’’

Zimmerman, a neighborhood-watch volunteer, claimed self defense immediately after the shooting death of the unarmed African American teenager. Martin was walking home with Skittles and iced tea in a gated community when Zimmerman deemed him suspicious and began to follow him. He called the Sanford police to report Martin, and minutes later Martin lay dead on the sidewalk from a gunshot wound to his chest.

Fulton explains that she was only offering additional insight into a comment Travyon’s father Tracy made on Today. “Tracy told the reporter that if Trayvon had been a minute earlier walking home or Zimmerman a minute later, this would have never happened.  I just meant it was an accident they ever met in the first place. It wasn’t supposed to be. If Zimmerman had stayed in his car that night, they wouldn’t have met. If he’d just minded his own business, this would not have happened.’’

“O’Mara is an excellent lawyer, very smart, very measured. very ethical,” Nejame said. “He knows how to deal with the media but not be a media hog.” That can only be a plus in a state where there always seems to be a stream of headline-grabbing court cases in the news.

Indeed, television viewers in Florida are already familiar with O’Mara as
part of the WKMG, Channel 6 news team of legal commentators. Ironically,
O’Mara recently was asked to comment on the Martin/Zimmerman shooting case because he has tried other so-called, Stand Your Ground cases in the past.

Asked by a WKMG reporter (before he signed on to represent Zimmerman) if the controversial law didn’t give Floridians a license to kill, O’Mara conceded in some cases it does. “If you can present evidence, or at least your own testimony, that (you were) in fear that he was going to commit great bodily injury or death, that is what kicks in the statutory protection that you’re allowed to respond with deadly force,” he said, adding, “(Some) people call it the ‘License to Murder’ statute because it doesn’t require actions to avoid the confrontation.”