Trayvon Lawyers Draw On 'Bootcamp Playbook'

The lawyers fighting Trayvon Martin's case are seeking more than justice in a court of law. Attorneys at the black-owned law firm of Parks & Crump took their case to the public right away, contacting media and Al Sharpton, pushing for the release of 911 tapes, and helping to organize rallies. "We need to fight first in the court of public opinion," Benjamin Crump tells the Miami Herald. "The jury is the American people.”

Crump says drew his legal lessons from “my biggest regret" and "my biggest victory": the case of Martin Lee Anderson, a black teenager who died after guards beat him at a Panama City boot camp in 2006. A jury acquitted the guards and a nurse despite video evidence, but the boy's family received more than $8 million in settlements. “His family got something, but I will go to my grave feeling the loss of trust in the system," says Crump. "We saw a little black boy die at the hands of adults who got away.” (More Trayvon Martin stories.)