Mar 30, 2005 · March 30, 2005 -- Legendary attorney Johnnie Cochran died Tuesday at age 67 while suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. He was known for his sharp tongue, celebrity clientele, and dedication ...
Johnnie Lee Cochran Jr. (/ ˈ k ɒ k r ə n /; October 2, 1937 – March 29, 2005) was an American lawyer and civil activist best known for his leadership role in the defense and criminal acquittal of O. J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.He often defended his client with rhymes like "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit!"
He has a reputation for slickness and winning, so when controversial lawyer Johnnie Cochran was diagnosed with a tumor requiring brain surgery, the man who normally seeks the limelight dropped into a self-imposed isolation — keeping his condition secret even from his mother-in-law. Five months later, in an exclusive first interview with The Post, Cochran says he's "90 …
April 10, 2005 4:00am. Even as he was dying from a cancerous brain tumor that reduced him to a wheelchair and robbed him of his silky eloquence, Johnnie Cochran remained upbeat – …
Jun 02, 2011 · Her father was Attorney Johnnie Cochran, who developed "a glioblastoma multiforme, which basically is the most deadly type of brain tumor." Johnnie Cochran died in 2005 at the age of 67. He might...
Brain tumorJohnnie Cochran / Cause of deathIn 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.
Now officially on the prosecution team, he would have to face down Simpson's star defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran, best known for his now famous quip, “If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.” This was the making of an epic duel, the likes of which the country had never seen.Jul 25, 2017
March 30, 2005 -- Legendary attorney Johnnie Cochran died Tuesday at age 67 while suffering from an inoperable brain tumor.Mar 30, 2005
In addition to O.J. Simpson, Cochran's high profile clients have included Michael Jackson, Reginald Denny, Abner Louima, Geronimo Pratt (former Black Panther), Todd Bridges, James Brown, Angela Igwe, and Cynthia Wiggins. Cochran has been selected as one of the best trial lawyers in the country in 1994.
Both defense attorneys Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran believed from the outset that Simpson was guilty, Toobin says.Sep 8, 1996
According to one member of the defense team, the answer is yes. Defense attorney Carl Douglas said in Dateline NBC's special THE PEOPLE vs. OJ SIMPSON: What the Jury Never Heard that he organized a redecoration of Simpson's estate before the jury visited.Mar 1, 2016
Factors considered as potential COD were: herniation (axial, transtentorial, subfalcine, tonsillar), surgical complications (death within thirty days of surgery secondary to cerebral hemorrhage and/or edema), severe systemic illness, brainstem invasion by tumor, and neutron-induced cerebral injury (cerebral and ...
In August 2013, Biden was admitted to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive type of brain cancer, after experiencing what White House officials called "an episode of disorientation and weakness". A lesion was removed at that time.
The Los Angeles Times attempted to dig deeper at the time, something that was depicted on Tuesday's episode of American Crime Story: The People V. OJ Simpson. 'I have never touched her or hit her, and we are very good friends to this day,' Cochran said at the time. 'Those are 20-year-old statements for legal reasons.Mar 8, 2016
Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, CAJohnnie Cochran / Place of burialInglewood Park Cemetery, 720 East Florence Avenue in Inglewood, California, was founded in 1905. A number of notable people, including entertainment and sports personalities, have been interred or entombed there. Wikipedia
After the trial, Cochran continued to practice law and appear as a TV commentator. He died of brain cancer in 2005 at age 68.Oct 3, 2020
According to The Los Angeles Times, Cochran had a relationship with Patricia Sikora while he and Berry were still married. Sikora and Cochran had a child together, Jonathon, who was working as a California Highway Patrol officer as of 2005.Mar 15, 2016
In 1964, the young Cochran prosecuted one of his first celebrity cases, Lenny Bruce, a comedian who had recently been arrested on obscenity charges.
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.
Cochran was born in 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father, Johnnie Cochran Sr. (1916–2018), 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, settling in Los Angeles in 1949. 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 and the fraternity's 45th Laurel Wreath laureate.
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 try 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 blood of both victims and Simpson, it had been found at the crime scene.
In 2007, the three-block stretch of the street in front of the school was renamed "Johnnie Cochran Vista". 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 neurosurgeon Keith Black, who had been Cochran's doctor.
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.
Stanley Tookie Williams. Johnnie Cochran defended 17-year old Stanley Tookie Williams in a robbery trial in the early 1970s. Williams at the time was a known member of the Westside Crips street gang. After less than 10 minutes on trial, Williams was acquitted of all charges.
The New York Post has the exclusive story about Johnnie Cochran's surgery--
We did manage to completely redo the cochran website while he was down and out:
Even as he was dying from a cancerous brain tumor that reduced him to a wheelchair and robbed him of his silky eloquence, Johnnie Cochran remained upbeat – hosting friends, vacationing in Italy and making plans for the future. But in the days leading up to his death March 29, the legendary lawyer knew the end was near and surrounded himself ...
Barely able to speak, the 67-year-old Cochran also bid heart-wrenching goodbyes to close pals Keith Givens, an Alabama lawyer who ran his expanding practice, and attorney Jock Smith, a native New Yorker to whom he’d become like a father after Smith’s dad was gunned down.
He and Dale spent time relaxing in Sag Harbor, where they’d bought a house. Cochran was fond of the water – he’d cruised St. Bart’s aboard Denzel Washington’s yacht the summer before. He started telling pals he’d make a full recovery.
But in the days leading up to his death March 29, the legendary lawyer knew the end was near and surrounded himself with his wife, father and adult children, who held a constant vigil at his home in the Los Feliz area of L.A., friends said. His wife, Dale Mason, hardly ever left his side, joined by “The Chief” – his 88-year-old father, Johnnie Sr.
At a party for him at the Santa Monica home of lawyer Browne Greene, Cochran showed up in a wheelchair. “He was obviously quite sick,” Greene said. “Dale was at his elbow at every turn. She was concerned.”.
By August, he was getting around with a walker. Cochran even consulted on cases, including a suit for a Staten Island Ferry crash victim, and hired the daughter of former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. He and Dale spent time relaxing in Sag Harbor, where they’d bought a house.
Johnnie Cochran continued to build on his reputation throughout the 1980’s and by the time the 1990’s rolled around he was a household name in California and among his legal peers. By the close of the decade Johnnie Cochran, Jr. would be recognized all around the world.
Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. was born on October 2, 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. His great-grandparents were slaves, and his grandfather was a sharecropper. His father, Johnnie Cochran, Sr., and mother, Hattie B. Cochran, instilled in Johnnie a work ethic that would take him from the Jim Crow Era South to the upper echelon of the American Legal System. Young Johnnie grew up with two sisters, Pearl and Martha Jean, and the siblings grew up in a time when Louisiana was still dealing with effects of The Great Depression and with Jim Crow laws still deeply entrenched. Despite the times, Johnnies time in Shreveport was a happy time and the memories that always stayed with him were made on Sundays with his family and his church.#N#In the fall of 1943 Johnnie’s father set out to California and quickly found work as a pipe fitter with Bethlehem Steel in the Alameda Naval Shipyards. Just as the young Johnnie Cochran was turning six he and his family boarded the Southern Pacific and headed to California as part of the second wave of the Great Migration, where 6 million African Americans moved to the Northeast, Midwest and West. Initially they lived with Aunt Lucinda, but soon found their own place near the shipyard. It was the family’s first experience with an integrated neighborhood where working class people of all races and religions lived side by side.
As a new attorney working for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office Johnnie was initially assigned to traffic court. On his very first day he tried 28 traffic tickets and won them all. Not long after he moved up to trying drunk driving and misdemeanor battery cases. In his first two years Johnnie participated in over 125 jury trials and had begun experimenting with the theatrical courtroom demeanor that he had learned from his pastor at Little Union Baptist Church and would later be famous for.#N#By 1965 Johnnie had become one of the city attorney’s top trial lawyers. Increasingly though he noticed that the cases coming his way were what was called “148s”. This means that the defendants he saw were charged with violating Section 148 of the California Penal Code, or in other words, resisting arrest or interfering with an officer in the course of his duties. LAPD officers privately referred to the penal code section 148 as “the attitude test.” If someone “flunked the attitude test” the officers would administer “curbside justice.”#N#Johnnie would start each week and see a courtroom filled with men who had “flunked the attitude test.” They invariably displayed visual injuries that would range from cuts and bruises to fractured limbs. Aside from the injuries, 90% of the defendants had another thing in common. They were African American men. The police in Los Angeles had become accustomed to exercising their power virtually unchecked by any authority higher than their own headquarters. From day one it was clear to Johnnie way he and his fellow deputy city attorneys were being asked to prosecute these bogus 148 cases. Through pursuing criminal charges against the men who had “flunked the attitude test”, the city made it virtually impossible for them to file civil suits against the city and be compensated for their injuries.#N#Through sleepless nights Johnnie began to listen to the voices that had always been with him. C.A.W. Clarke’s sermons in Little Union Baptist Church; “A man cannot serve two masters”, His mother making him promise to be the best that he can be, Thurgood Marshall speaking on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, and W.E.B. Dubois describing how Frederick Douglas resolved his own inner struggle. He listened to these voices and in March of 1965 Johnnie left the city attorney’s office and entered into private practice.
On June 10, 1997 Johnnie Cochran finished his work for Geronimo Pratt when Pratt’s conviction was vacated after 27 years. This became Johnnie’s proudest achievement as an attorney and the two remained close friends until the time of Mr. Cochran’s passing in 2005.
He became fluent in Spanish and took classes for French and Italian. His friends were comprised mostly of members of the Honor Society, which he was a member of, and was only open to the top 5 percent of the class. . In 1954 Johnnie was given the inspiration that would shape his future and who he was as a person.
Not long after he moved up to trying drunk driving and misdemeanor battery cases. In his first two years Johnnie participated in over 125 jury trials and had begun experimenting with the theatrical courtroom demeanor that he had learned from his pastor at Little Union Baptist Church and would later be famous for.
In the mid 1960’s The Black Panther Party rose to national attention with their platform of community determination and meeting racism and oppression with armed struggle. They patrolled their communities, offered free school and clinics, and organized food banks. Soon they found themselves under surveillance by the FBI as well as law enforcement at all levels. The authorities infiltrated and disrupted the organization and even assassinated members. Tensions between the Black Panthers and authorities built over the last half of the decade to the point where in December of 1969 members of LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Division, along with FBI agents surrounded the Panther’s Central Avenue headquarters. Over the next five hours the two parties would trade gunfire. The police fired tear gas and the Panther’s threw Molotov’s. The Panther’s eventually surrendered. No one died, but 3 officers and 6 Panthers were injured. Thirteen party members were charged with more than 70 criminal offenses. Johnnie Cochran was appointed to represent a Panther named Willie Stafford. It was here that Johnnie Cochran started his life-long friendship with Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt.