That same year, believing that African Americans were being abused in the criminal justice system, Cochran left the city's office. In 1965, Johnnie Cochran switched to the other side of the bench, entering private practice with Gerald Lenior, a prominent local attorney.
After graduating from UCLA, Cochran earned a law degree from Loyola University. He spent two years in the Los Angeles city attorney's office before establishing his own practice. He briefly became a special assistant to the Los Angeles County district attorney in the 1970s, setting up a unit to prosecute domestic violence cases.
Long before the "Trial of the Century" and parodies on network television, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on October 2, 1937, to Johnnie L. Cochran Sr. and his wife Hattie. According to Biography, when he was just six when the family picked up and moved to California.
According to The Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame, Johnnie Cochran became the first African American assistant district attorney in Los Angeles when he was hired to the position in 1978. He said that joining the government was the best way to become one of the "good guys" that can fight for justice within the justice system.
He would continue his education at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where he would receive his Juris Doctor in 1963.
As for actual portrayals of Cochran, in a season two episode of South Park, Cochran represented a record company and then the character Chef in two lawsuits. For his closing statements, instead of discussing the case, Cochran rambled about the Star Wars character Chewbacca, which led to his victories.
Simpson trial would be the highlight of Johnnie Cochran's career: He'd successfully acquitted one of his most well-known clients and put the entire Los Angeles Police Department on trial for their history of brutality and racial abuse. However, according to The Washington Post, overturning the conviction of Geronimo Pratt is what Cochran said was "the happiest day" of his legal practice.
This in part came from some disturbing accusations leveled against him by his first wife and an affair during their marriage.
Switching to private practice. In 1965 , Johnnie Cochran switched to the other side of the bench, entering private practice with Gerald Lenior, a prominent local attorney. According to Jrank.org, that partnership did not last long, and by the next year, Cochran had formed a new firm called Cochran, Atkins & Evans.
Johnnie Cochran's early life. Long before the "Trial of the Century" and parodies on network television, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on October 2, 1937, to Johnnie L. Cochran Sr. and his wife Hattie.
George Gojkovich/Getty Images. It was the O.J. Simpson trial that turned Johnnie Cochran into one of the most famous men in the country, and if someone had told Cochran this at the dawning of the double homicide investigation, he would have been more surprised than anyone.
Johnnie Cochran established himself as a sought after attorney dealing with high-profile police brutality cases involving the African American community . He attracted famous clients like Michael Jackson and led O. J. Simpson 's defense team in the 1995 murder trial.
In 1966, a Black motorist named Leonard Deadwyler, while attempting to get his pregnant wife to a hospital, was killed by police officer Jerold Bova. Cochran filed a civil suit on behalf of Deadwyler's family; though he lost, the attorney was nonetheless inspired to take on police abuse cases over the ensuing years. During the early 1980s, he oversaw a settlement for the family of African American football player Ron Settles, who died in a police cell under questionable circumstances. The following decade, Cochran won a huge, unprecedented court payment for a 13-year-old molested by an officer.
Cochran thus made controversial closing statements in which he compared the detective’s philosophy to that of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Simpson was found not guilty in his murder trial, yet nonetheless faced civil litigation, with millions in damages awarded to the Brown and Goldman families.
Over the years, Cochran's roster included famous entertainers like actor Todd Bridges, who was charged with attempted murder, and pop icon Michael Jackson, with Cochran arranging an out-of-court settlement for the singer in relation to child molestation charges.
Pratt was convicted and imprisoned, while Cochran maintained that the activist was railroaded by authorities, pushing for a retrial. (The conviction was eventually overturned after more than two decades. Pratt was released, with Cochran also overseeing a wrongful imprisonment suit.)
After returning to private practice, Cochran built his firm into a personal injury giant with more than 100 lawyers and offices around the country. Flamboyant in public, he kept his private life shrouded in secrecy, and when some of those secrets became public following a 1978 divorce, they were startling.
Reacting to news of Cochran's death Tuesday, Jackson had kind words for the lawyer he considered "a great humanitarian.". "Johnnie Cochran was a true gentleman who embodied class, brilliance, honesty and integrity," Jackson said in a statement. "His fight for justice transcended color, age or economic status. ... I loved him, and I will miss him.
Cochran Jr. ( search ), who became a household name when he defended O.J. Simpson ( search) against murder charges, died of a brain tumor on Tuesday at the age of 67.
Since gaining a reputation in Ebony magazine as "the best in the West" in the early 1980s, Cochran eventually became the go-to guy for black celebrities in trouble.
When Cochran helped Pratt win his freedom in 1997 he called the moment "the happiest day of my life practicing law.". He won a $760,000 award in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Ron Settles, a black college football star who died in police custody in 1981.
As a youth, Cochran idolize Thurgood Marshall, the attorney who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw school segregation in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision and who would eventually become the Supreme Court's first black justice.
In "Lethal Weapon 4," comedian Chris Rock plays a policeman who advises a criminal suspect he has a right to an attorney, then warns him: "If you get Johnnie Cochran, I'll kill you.". The flamboyant Cochran enjoyed that parody so much he even quoted it in his autobiography, "A Lawyer's Life.". "It was fun. At times it was a lot of fun," he said of ...