Cochran
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Los Angeles:
JOHNNY L. Cochran Jr., who became a legal superstar after helping clear O.J. Simpson during a sensational murder trial in which he uttered the famous quote "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," died Tuesday. He was 67.
Cochran died of a brain tumour at his home in Los Angeles, his family said.
"Certainly, Johnnie's career will be noted as one marked by celebrity cases and clientele," the family said in a statement. "But he and his family were most proud of the work he did on behalf of those in the community."
With his colourful suits and ties, his gift for courtroom oratory and a knack for coining memorable phrases, Cochran was a vivid addition to the pantheon of great American barristers.
His catchphrase in the Simpson trial, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," would be quoted and parodied for years. It derived from a dramatic moment during which Simpson tried on a pair of bloodstained 'murder gloves' to show jurors they did not fit. Some legal experts called it the turning point in the trial.
Soon after, jurors found the Hall of Fame football star not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who worked with Cochran on the Simpson criminal case, called him a great lawyer.
"He was such a young and vibrant man," Dershowitz said. "He turned his victory in the O.J. Simpson case into an effort to do a lot of good for poor people."
For Cochran, Simpson's acquittal was the crowning achievement in a career notable for victories, often in cases with racial themes. He was a black man known for championing the causes of black defendants. Some of them, like Simpson, were famous, but more often than not they were unknowns.
"The clients I've cared about the most are the No Js, the ones who nobody knows," said Cochran, who proudly displayed copies in his office of the multimillion-dollar checks he won for ordinary citizens who said they were abused by police.
Over the years, Cochran represented football great Jim Brown on rape and assault charges, actor Todd Bridges on attempted murder charges, rapper Tupac Shakur on a weapons charge and rapper Snoop Dogg on a murder charge.
HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE
He also represented former Black Panther Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, who spent 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. When Cochran helped Pratt win his freedom in 1997, he called the moment "the happiest day of my life practising law."
But the attention he received from all of those cases didn't come remotely close to the fame the Simpson case brought him.
In legal circles, the verdict represented the pinnacle of success for a respected attorney who had toiled in the Los Angeles legal profession for three decades.
Born in Shreveport, La., the great-grandson of slaves, grandson of a sharecropper and son of an insurance salesman, Cochran came to Los Angeles with his family in 1949. In the 1950s, he became one of two dozen black students integrated into Los Angeles High School.
