Johnnie Cochran

Johnnie Lee Cochran Jr. (/ˈkɒkrən/ KOK-rən; 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 spanning from 1964 to 2002. 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, Todd Bridges, football player Jim Brown, Snoop Dogg, former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe, 1992 Los Angeles riot beating victim Reginald Oliver Denny, inmate and activist Geronimo Pratt, and athlete Marion Jones when she faced doping charges during her high school track career.
Cochran was born in 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father, Johnnie Cochran Sr. (October 20, 1916 – April 29, 2018), was an insurance 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.
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."
After passing the California bar exam in 1963, Cochran took a position in Los Angeles as a deputy city attorney in the criminal division. 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.
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.
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 US$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, and joined Cochran, Cherry, Givens & Smith in 1997. The Cochran Firm has grown to have regional offices located in fifteen states.
In most of his cases Cochran represented plaintiffs in tort actions and opposed tort reform. Due to his success as a lawyer, Cochran could encourage settlement simply by his presence on a case. According to Rev. Jesse Jackson, a call to Johnnie Cochran made "corporations and violators shake."
Cochran's well-honed rhetoric and flamboyance 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 US$25–50 million.
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. In the words of Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, Cochran "was willing to fight for the underdog." Jesse Jackson called Cochran the "people's lawyer." Magic Johnson said Cochran was known "for representing O. J. and Michael [Jackson], but he was bigger and better than that".
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. 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". Cochran replied that it was "not a case about race, it is a case about reasonable doubt", adding, "there are a lot of white people who are willing to accept this verdict".
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.
In 2001, Sean (P. Diddy) 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.
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.
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. 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.
Cochran did not represent Williams at his multiple murder trials in the 1980s.
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.
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.
He died from the brain tumor on March 29, 2005, at his home in Los Angeles. Public viewing of his casket was conducted on April 4, at the Angelus Funeral Home and April 5, at Second Baptist Church, in Los Angeles. A memorial service was held at West Angeles Cathedral, in Los Angeles, on April 6, 2005. His remains were interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. The funeral was attended by his father, Johnnie Sr., as well as numerous former friends and clients, including O. J. Simpson and Michael Jackson.
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.
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.
Actor Phil Morris played attorney Jackie Chiles, a character parody of Cochran, in several episodes of Seinfeld. He was satirized in the "Chef Aid" episode of the animated sitcom South Park, in which he appears using a confusing legal strategy called "the Chewbacca defense", a direct parody of his closing argument when defending O. J. Simpson. Cochran took these parodies in stride, discussing them in his autobiography, A Lawyer's Life. Additionally, he appeared as himself in The Hughleys, Family Matters, The Howard Stern Show, Arli$$, CHiPs '99, Bamboozled, Showtime, Martin, and JAG.
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 The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016) by actor Courtney B. Vance. In the series, Cochran is depicted as fully aware that Simpson is responsible for the murders and initially reluctant to be part of the Dream Team, believing that they will lose. Cochran also serves as a composite character with Gerald Uelman, 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.
On November 6, 1995, in season 3, episode 8, "The Party's Over" of The Nanny, the final joke is Cochran's line from O.J. Simpson's trial: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." To Fran's dismay, her elderly lawyer uncle refers to her skimpy skirt barely covering her buttocks, only to fall asleep in midsession afterwards.
In 2002, Good Charlotte released a song, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", in which a line makes reference to Cochran's defense of O.J. Simpson, saying: "Well, did you know, when you were famous, you could kill your wife? And there's no such thing as 25 to life – as long as you've got the cash to pay for Cochran."
On the opening track of Kanye West's Yeezus (2013), the rapper compares his lover's ability to pleasure African American men to Cochran's ability to get an innocent verdict for his African American clients in the line: "She got more niggas off than Cochran, huh?"