Johnnie Lee Cochran Jr.[Adam Bernstein, "Showy, Tenacious Lawyer Rode Simpson Murder Trial to Fame", The Washington Post, March 30, 2005; retrieved April 17, 2006.] ( ; October 2, 1937 – March 29, 2005) was an American attorney from California who was involved in numerous civil rights and police brutality cases throughout his 38-year career. Noted for his skill in the courtroom, he is best known for leading the so-called "Dream Team" during the murder trial of O.J. Simpson.
Cochran also represented Sean Combs, Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur, Stanley Tookie Williams,[Cochran, J. A Lawyer's Life, pp.39. St. Martin's Griffin, 2003. ] Todd Bridges,[Mike O'Sullivan, Celebrity Lawyer Johnnie Cochran Dies at 67, voanews.com, March 30, 2005; retrieved April 18, 2005.] 1992 Los Angeles riot beating victim Reginald Oliver Denny,
Early life and education
Cochran was born in 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father, Johnnie Cochran Sr. (October 20, 1916 – April 29, 2018),
was an
salesman and his mother sold
Avon Products.
The family relocated to the West Coast during the second wave of the Great Migration, eventually settling in Los Angeles.
Cochran was six years old when his family moved into a three bedroom, one bath, wood frame house in West Adams, which was a middle-class neighborhood at that time.
Cochran went to local schools and graduated first in his class from Los Angeles High School in 1955. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1959 and a
Juris Doctor from the Loyola Law School in 1962. He was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, initiated through the Upsilon chapter and the fraternity's 45th Laurel Wreath laureate.
Legal practice
Inspired by Thurgood Marshall and the legal victory that Marshall won in
Brown v. Board of Education, Cochran decided to dedicate his life to practicing law. Cochran felt his career was a calling, a double opportunity to work for what he considered to be right and to challenge what he considered wrong; he could make a difference by practicing law. In
A Lawyer's Life, Cochran wrote, "I read everything that I could find about Thurgood Marshall and confirmed that a single dedicated man could use the law to change society."
Despite setbacks as a lawyer, Cochran vowed not to cease what he was doing, saying: "I made this commitment and I must fulfill it."[Robert Flemming, BIBR talks to Johnnie Cochran , Black Issues Book Review, Nov-Dec 2002; retrieved April 23, 2006.]
Early career
After passing the California
bar exam in 1963, Cochran took a position in Los Angeles as a deputy city attorney in the criminal division.
[Jared Grimmer, Johnnie Cochran , law.umkc.edu; April 20, 2006.] In 1964, the young Cochran prosecuted one of his first celebrity cases,
Lenny Bruce, a comedian who had recently been arrested on obscenity charges.
Two years later, Cochran entered private practice. Soon thereafter, he opened his own firm, Cochran, Atkins & Evans, in Los Angeles.
In his first notable case, Cochran represented an African-American widow who sued several police officers who had shot and killed her husband, Leonard Deadwyler. Though Cochran lost the case, it became a turning point in his career. Rather than seeing the case as a defeat, Cochran realized the trial itself had awakened the black community. In reference to the loss, Cochran wrote in The American Lawyer, "those were extremely difficult cases to win in those days. But what Deadwyler confirmed for me was that this issue of police abuse really galvanized the minority community. It taught me that these cases could really get attention."
By the late 1970s, Cochran had established his reputation in the black community. He litigated a number of high-profile police brutality and criminal cases.
Los Angeles County District Attorney's office
In 1978, Cochran returned to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office in the leadership position of First Assistant District Attorney.
Though he took a pay cut to do so, joining the government was his way of becoming "one of the good guys, one of the very top rung." He began to strengthen his ties with the political community, alter his image, and work from within to change the system.
[Kevin Merida, Johnnie Cochran, the Attorney On the People's Defense Team, washingtonpost.com, March 31, 2005; retrieved April 22, 2006.]
Return to private practice
Five years later, Cochran returned to private practice, reinventing himself as "the best in the West" by opening the Johnnie L Cochran Jr. law firm. In contrast to his early loss in the Deadwyler case, Cochran won 760,000 for the family of
Ron Settles, a black college football player who, his family claimed, was murdered by the police. In 1990, Cochran joined a succeeding firm, Cochran, Mitchell & Jenna,
[ Johnnie Cochran – Trial Attorney by Topblacks.com, retrieved April 22, 2006.] and joined Cochran, Cherry, Givens & Smith in 1997.
[ The Honorable Jock Smith, thehistorymakers.com; accessed February 17, 2015.] The Cochran Firm has grown to have regional offices located in fifteen states.
In most of his cases Cochran represented in tort actions and opposed tort reform.[Johnnie Cochran tort reform interview by Sky News Network, retrieved May 4, 2006.] Due to his success as a lawyer, Cochran could encourage settlement simply by his presence on a case.[Rupert Cornwell, Obituary: Johnnie Cochran, The (London) Independent, March 31, 2005; retrieved April 17, 2005.] According to Rev. Jesse Jackson, a call to Johnnie Cochran made "corporations and violators shake."
Cochran's well-honed rhetoric[ Remembering Johnnie Cochran, April 1, 2005 broadcast, greaterboston.tv, April 1, 2005.] in the courtroom has been described as theatrical. His practice as a lawyer earned him great wealth. With his earnings, he bought and drove cars such as a Jaguar and a Rolls-Royce. He owned homes in Los Angeles, two apartments in West Hollywood and a condo in Manhattan. In 2001, Cochran's accountant estimated that within five years he would be worth 25–50 million.[Jeffrey Meitrodt and Mark Schleifstein, Through The Cracks, nola.com, March 27, 2001; retrieved April 29, 2006.]
Clients
Before the Simpson case, Cochran had achieved a reputation as a "go-to" lawyer for the rich, as well as a successful advocate for minorities in police brutality and civil rights cases. But the controversial and dramatic Simpson trial made Cochran more widely known, generating a more polarized perception of him.
Cochran liked to say that he worked "not only for the OJs, but also the No Js". In other words, he enjoyed defending or suing in the name of those who did not have fame or wealth. Cochran believed his "most glorious" moment as a lawyer was when he won the freedom of Geronimo Pratt. Cochran said he considered Pratt's release "the happiest day" of his legal practice.
O. J. Simpson
In October 1995, after a public trial that lasted nearly nine months and presented both circumstantial and physical evidence that Simpson had killed both victims, Simpson was controversially acquitted. During closing arguments in the Simpson trial, Cochran uttered the now famous phrase, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." He used the phrase, which had been devised by fellow defense team member
Gerald Uelmen,
as a way to persuade the jury that Simpson could not have murdered Nicole Brown Simpson nor
Ron Goldman. In a dramatic scene, Simpson appeared to have difficulty getting the glove on; stained with the blood of both victims and Simpson, it had been found at the crime scene.
Cochran did not represent Simpson in the subsequent civil trial, in which Simpson was found liable for the deaths. Cochran was criticized during the criminal trial by pundits, as well as by prosecutor Christopher Darden, for suggesting that the police were trying to frame Simpson because they were racist.[ In Contempt by Christopher Darden, published 1996.] During the trial, Cochran successfully convinced the jury that the prosecution did not prove Simpson was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and that the police planted evidence against him.
Robert Shapiro, co-counsel on Simpson's defense team, accused Cochran of dealing the "race card" "from the bottom of the deck".[Steve Hammer, Johnnie Cochran speaks his mind, NUVO.net, October 19, 1995; retrieved May 4, 2006.]
Abner Louima
Cochran represented
Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant living in Brooklyn who was sodomized with a broken broomstick by officer Justin Volpe while in police custody. Louima was awarded an $8.75 million settlement, the largest police brutality settlement in New York City history. Tension broke out between Louima's original lawyers and the new team headed by Cochran. The former team felt that Cochran and his colleagues were trying to take control of the entire trial.
[Peter Noel, "The Louima Millions", Villagevoice.com, July 18–24, 2001; retrieved April 18, 2005.]
Sean Combs
In 2001,
Sean Combs was indicted on bribery and stolen weapons charges. He hired Cochran for his defense. Cochran fought for Combs's freedom, and Combs was acquitted.
[ "'Puffy' Combs Indicted On Stolen Weapons Charge; Atty. Johnnie Cochran Joins His Legal Team" , findarticles.com, January 31, 2000; retrieved April 23, 2006.]
In 2002, Cochran told Combs that this would be his last criminal case. Cochran retired after the trial. R. Kelly and Allen Iverson later asked for his services in criminal cases, but he declined to represent them.
Stanley Tookie Williams
Cochran defended 17-year-old Stanley Tookie Williams in a robbery trial in the early 1970s.
Williams was a known member of the
Westside Crips street gang.
[Knox, G. Gangs and Organized Crime. ] After less than 10 minutes of deliberation, a jury acquitted Williams of all charges.
Years later, Williams was arrested for assaulting LAPD personnel, and was acquitted, with Cochran again serving as his counsel.[Williams, S. Blue Rage, Black Redemption, pp.162. Touchstone. ]
Cochran did not represent Williams at his multiple murder trials in the 1980s.
Michael Jackson
Cochran also represented Michael Jackson when he was accused of child molestation in 1993.
Jackson and his accuser settled the case out of court. When Jackson faced criminal charges for further molestation allegations in 2004, his family sought advice from Cochran, who recommended defense attorney
Thomas Mesereau.
Illness and death
In December 2003, Cochran was diagnosed with a
brain tumor. In April 2004, he underwent surgery, which led him to stay away from the media. Shortly thereafter, he told the
New York Post that he was feeling well and was in good health.
[ Defense superstar Johnnie Cochran dead at 67, NBC News.msn.com, March 30, 2005; retrieved April 18, 2005.]
He died from the brain tumor on March 29, 2005, at his home in Los Angeles.
Posthumous ruling
On May 31, 2005, two months after Cochran's death, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its opinion in
Tory v. Cochran. The court ruled 7–2 that in light of Cochran's death, an injunction limiting the demonstrations of Ulysses Tory "amounts to an overly broad
prior restraint upon speech." Two justices,
Antonin Scalia and
Clarence Thomas, said that Cochran's death made it unnecessary for the court to rule. Lower courts, before Cochran died, held that Tory could not make any public comments about Cochran.
[Tony Mauro, Cochran ruling only narrow free-speech victory, firstamendmentcenter.org, June 1, 2005; retrieved April 29, 2006.]
Legacy
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On January 24, 2006, Los Angeles Unified School District officials unanimously approved the renaming of Mount Vernon Middle School, Cochran's boyhood middle school, to Johnnie L Cochran Jr. Middle School in his honor. The decision received mixed responses.
[ Middle school renamed after Johnnie Cochran, msnbc.msn.com, January 26, 2006; retrieved April 29, 2006.]
-
In 2007, the three-block stretch of the street in front of the school was renamed "Johnnie Cochran Vista".
[
]
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "Council Approves 'Johnnie Cochran Vista' Designation in Honor of Famed Civil Rights Lawyer", City of Los Angeles, May 11, 2007[Stephen Ceasar, "School names can be lessons in recognition", Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2012; retrieved April 6, 2016.]
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In 2007, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles opened the new Johnnie L Cochran Jr. Brain Tumor Center, a research center headed by noted neurosurgery Keith Black, who had been Cochran's doctor.
[Sandy Banks, "Celebrities gather to dedicate brain tumor center", Los Angeles Times, May 4, 2007.][ Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Brain Tumor Center, cedars-sinai.edu; accessed February 17, 2015.]
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Cochran's family created an endowed chair, the Johnnie L Cochran Jr. Chair in Civil Rights,
[ Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Chair in Civil Rights Loyola Law School. 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2016] at his alma mater, Loyola Law School of Loyola Marymount University.[; retrieved February 17, 2016.]
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Cochran's footprints are featured on the Northwest Louisiana Walk of Stars in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana.
Depictions in media
After the Simpson trial, Cochran was a frequent commentator in law-related television shows. Additionally, he hosted his own show,
Johnnie Cochran Tonight, on
CourtTV. With the Simpson fame also came movie deals.
[Robert J. Sales, Johnnie Cochran to be MLK speaker, mit.edu, January 10, 2001; retrieved May 11, 2006.]
Actor Phil Morris played attorney Jackie Chiles, a character parody of Cochran, in several episodes of Seinfeld.
Ving Rhames played Cochran in the film American Tragedy (2000).
Cochran is mentioned in the 2011 musical comedy The Book of Mormon, where he is depicted as being in hell alongside Genghis Khan, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Adolf Hitler for "getting O. J. free".
Cochran was portrayed in (2016) by actor Courtney B. Vance. In the series, Cochran is depicted as believing that Simpson is responsible for the murders and initially reluctant to be part of the Dream Team, convinced that they will lose. Cochran also serves as a composite character with Gerald Uelmen, who was omitted from the series, taking Uelman's place as the lawyer who cross-examines Fuhrman for the second time, and who comes up with "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." Vance won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance.
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