Johnnie cochran s death row

By the late s, Cochran had established his reputation in the black community. He litigated a number of high-profile police brutality and criminal cases. Five years later, Cochran returned to private practice, reinventing himself as "the best in the West" by opening the Johnnie L Cochran Jr. In most of his cases Cochran represented plaintiffs in tort actions and opposed tort reform.

Jesse Jacksona call to Johnnie Cochran made "corporations and violators shake. Cochran's well-honed rhetoric [ 5 ] and flamboyance [ 22 ] 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. 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 Octoberafter 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.

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 Dardenfor suggesting that the police were trying to frame Simpson because they were racist.

Robert Shapiroco-counsel on Simpson's defense team, accused Cochran of dealing the " race card " "from the bottom of the deck". Cochran represented Abner Louimaa Haitian immigrant living in Brooklyn who was sodomized with a broken broomstick by officer Justin Volpe while in police custody. 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. InSean 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. InCochran told Combs that this would be his last criminal case. Cochran retired after the trial.

Johnnie cochran s death row

Kelly and Allen Iverson later asked for his services in criminal cases, but he declined to represent them. Cochran defended year-old Stanley Tookie Williams in a robbery trial in the early s. 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 s.

Cochran also represented Michael Jackson when he was accused of child molestation in When Jackson faced criminal charges for further molestation allegations inhis family sought advice from Cochran, who recommended defense attorney Thomas Mesereau. In DecemberCochran was diagnosed johnnie cochran s death row a brain tumor. In Aprilhe 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,at his home in Los Angeles. The funeral was attended by his father, Johnnie Sr. The family moved to California inwhere the younger Cochran eventually excelled as a student in what was becoming a more racially integrated environment.

Inhe received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and later attended Loyola Marymount University Law School, graduating in Upon passing the bar, Cochran worked as a deputy criminal prosecutor in Los Angeles. Around this time, Cochran began to build a reputation for taking on cases involving questionable police actions against African Americans.

Ina 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 s, 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 year-old molested by an officer. In the early s, Cochran also went to court in defense of Geronimo Pratt, a former Black Panther accused of murder. Pratt was convicted and imprisoned, while Cochran maintained that the activist was railroaded by authorities, pushing for a retrial.

Doctors removed the tumor in April, and Cochran spent three weeks recovering at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. During the first annual convention of his firm in L. At a party for him at the Santa Monica home of lawyer Browne Greene, Cochran showed up in a wheelchair. She was concerned. She first filed for divorce inbut the couple eventually worked it out and got back together.

A decade later, she filed for divorce again inaccusing Cochran of domestic violence and physical and mental abuse. In the book, she claimed that Cochran and Simpson were "mirror images of each other in their apparent disdain for women," as reported by the Daily Mail. Berry never commented on the memoir, nor did she confirm or deny Cochran's allegations that her abuse claims were "not true.

I never said I wanted to be interviewed," she reportedly told the Los Angeles Times in Cochran and Berry's relationshipwith or without abuse, was still somewhat tumultuous. Despite welcoming two children together, daughters Tiffany and Melodie, Cochran also had a child out of wedlock around the same time. He reportedly welcomed son Jonathan with his mistress, Patricia Sikora, while he was still married to Berry.

Patricia went public with her year affair with Cochran during Simpson's trial, shocking both his first and second wife, Sylvia Dale. Dale later went on to build a successful business, buying newsstands at popular airports and pocketing commissions from publishers to place and sell their magazines and papers. The duo officially got married in