COCHRAN, JOHNNIE L., JR.

COCHRAN, JOHNNIE L., JR.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. built a reputation as a
tough, uncompromising litigator by working on
both sides of the courtroom. He has been the
third-highest-ranking official of the Los Angeles
County district attorney’s office, and he has
fought numerous cases in private practice. The
recurrent theme of his career is social justice:
Cochran specializes in representing African-
American clients he believes have been treated
unfairly by the law. His work on behalf of ordinary
citizens in police-brutality cases achieved
spectacular success in the 1980s and 1990s, ultimately leading to significant changes in Los
Angeles Police Department (LAPD) policy.
High-profile cases for celebrity clients—including
Michael Jackson and O. J. (Orenthal James)
Simpson—have tended to overshadow his less
glamorous accomplishments, for which he has
won numerous citations, awards, and courtroom
victories. His controversial stewardship of
Simpson’s defense team in 1995 made him a
household name.
Growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, where
he was born on October 2, 1937, Cochran had
strong role models in his parents. His mother, a
homemaker, ran an Avon business. His father
and namesake, Johnnie L. Cochran, Sr., sold
policies for Golden State Mutual Life Insurance,
a large, black-owned company. Cochran’s father
moved the family to Los Angeles in 1942, where
he was promoted to chief of Golden State’s
training program. Cochran went on to attend
the University of California, Los Angeles, and
then Loyola University School of Law. His father
remained a great influence and, even in the
1990s, lived in the mansion home of the younger
Cochran and his wife. “I think Johnnie got a lot
of his ideas about justice from seeing me as he
grew up,” his father said. “. . . I tried to make my
children sensitive to racism. But we also didn’t
want them to get consumed by anger.” The
anger—outrage that became the cornerstone of
the young lawyer’s career—came later.
Upon graduation from law school in 1962,
Cochran wanted to further social justice. Joining
the Los Angeles city attorney’s office
allowed him to do so. As a deputy prosecutor,
he represented African-Americans who had
been brutalized by Los Angeles police officers.
Cases of mistreatment were rife and were getting
worse; in 1965, long-simmering racial tensions
erupted in widespread rioting in the Watts
section of the city. Cochran left for private practice
that year and soon had the pivotal case of
his young career. He represented the family of
Leonard Deadwyler, a young African-American
who was shot dead by police officers while
rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital.
Although Cochran’s client lost, the case had
lasting personal and professional importance
for him. The televised trial made him immediately
recognizable in Los Angeles.Moreover, his
courtroom performance helped to establish
him as a figure whom African-Americans
trusted; he later said that the case taught him
the importance of police-abuse issues to minority
communities.
Cochran had found his cause. He spent much of the next decade in private practice fighting cases involving excessive force or SEXUAL
ABUSE by police officers. Most of his clients
had little or no money, but, winning time and
again, Cochran could afford to take their cases.
One loss in court, however, proved to be another
turning point in his life. The case of Elmer
(“Geronimo”) Pratt tested Cochran’s faith in the
justice system, changed him politically, and
troubled him for decades. Pratt was a member of
the BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF-DEFENSE, a
radical, African-American political organization
of the late 1960s. In 1968, the Santa Monica, California,
police accused Pratt of shooting to death
a white, female teacher in a tennis court ROBBERY.
Pratt had an apparently strong alibi: He
claimed to have been in Oakland at the time of
the killing, attending a high-level Black Panther
party meeting. The alibi was strengthened by the
previous identification of a different suspect by
the victim’s husband. Nevertheless, Pratt was
convicted of murder in 1972.
Pratt’s conviction shocked Cochran, who
attributed it to institutional racism. “It taught
me that you can work within the system and
believe in it, but if the government wants to get
you, they can go out and get you,” he told Time
Magazine in 1995. “It also taught me that you
never stop fighting.” Cochran continued to fight
for Pratt’s release for nearly 25 years, although at
least a dozen efforts failed to win PAROLE for his
client. Then, in 1994, he uncovered new evidence
that suggested that Pratt might have been
framed by the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
(FBI) in its notorious Counterintelligence
Program (COINTELPRO), which once was aimed
at disrupting the Panthers and other radical
groups. Cochran alleged that the FBI had wiretapped
his telephone and used informants to
weaken Pratt’s defense, and that it even had lied
in court—all illegal efforts. The evidence convinced
the Los Angeles district attorney’s office
to review the case.
Cochran’s ultimate success in winning
review of Pratt’s case was partly due to the influence
that he had accumulated over 30 years in
Los Angeles.“He deals effectively with everyone,
from presidents to common people,” John
Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban
League, told Time Magazine, “and he knows
everyone in between.” If Cochran is wellconnected,
it is owing not only to his affability
but also to the unique course that his career has
taken. Following a decade of successful private
practice, he briefly returned to public service as
chief administrator of the Los Angeles County
district attorney’s office in the late 1970s.He was
third in command. Working beneath Cochran
was Gil Garcetti, who later became district
attorney.
Returning to private practice in 1980,
Cochran soon took a case that epitomized his
professional and moral concerns: It involved a
dead African American and disavowals of
responsibility by police officers. Ron Settles, a
black football player from California State University,
had been arrested and jailed for speeding;
soon afterward, he was found hanged in
his cell. The LAPD called his death a suicide,
but Cochran convinced the family to have Settle’s
body exhumed for a new autopsy—which
revealed that Settles had died from being
choked. At the time, choke holds were commonly
used by Los Angeles police officers
when making arrests. In a WRONGFUL DEATH
suit, Cochran persuaded a jury that Settles had
been choked to death by officers, winning an
award for the family of $760,000. He later
noted ironically that when he had begun practicing
law, “you would be almost held in CONTEMPT
of court if you said a police officer was
lying.” The suit helped to bring about an
important reform of LAPD policy: Shortly
thereafter, the department banned the use of
the choke hold.
Prominent clients flocked to Cochran. He
won a dismissal of rape charges brought against
football great Jim Brown in 1985. He also
secured an acquittal for actor Todd Bridges, star
of the television comedy show Diff ’rent Strokes.
Bridges had been accused of attempted murder,
attempted MANSLAUGHTER, and assault with a
deadly weapon, but even the testimony of four
eyewitnesses did not stop Cochran from winning
the case in 1989. Cochran’s work for pop
singer Michael Jackson achieved only mixed
success. After Jackson was accused of sexual
molestation of a 13-year-old boy in 1993,
Cochran managed to keep the case from going
to court.He arranged a controversial private settlement
with the boy’s family, which reportedly
totaled $10 million.
Even when he represents white citizens, race
is often an issue. After the epochal Los Angeles
riots in 1992, Cochran represented Reginald
Denny, a white truck driver whose near-fatal
beating by black assailants was broadcast live on
television. During the 1993 criminal trial of two
suspects, Denny suddenly embraced the defendants’
mothers. The spontaneous display of
compassion—and apparent lack of any resentment—
stunned onlookers. Praising his client,
Cochran observed, “I guess he’s a lot kinder than
you and I.” Both defendants were acquitted in a
controversial verdict, but Cochran subsequently
pursued a separate civil suit against the city of
Los Angeles based on a novel legal claim: The
suit alleged that police officers violated Denny’s
CIVIL RIGHTS by failing to come to his aid during
the beating because they had chosen not to
enter a predominantly black neighborhood.
The preparation of O. J. Simpson’s defense
initially began without Cochran’s participation.
Charged in the double murder of Nicole Brown
Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman, Simpson
brought in Cochran only after hiring Los Angeles
defense attorney ROBERT SHAPIRO. As the
new leader among several prominent attorneys,
Cochran attacked the prosecution for “a classic
rush-to-judgment case.”
Cochran’s work for Simpson divided critics.
Legal analysts praised his eloquent OPENING
STATEMENT and occasionally brilliant tactics
that undermined the prosecutors’ lengthy and
repetitive case. But Cochran was criticized when
the defense began presenting its own case, particularly
for calling witnesses whose testimony
backfired. Despite the opinions of critics,
Cochran’s role in the Simpson trial was pivotal.
Simpson’s acquittal was a resounding victory for
Cochran. Shortly after the bombing of a federal
office building in Oklahoma City in 1995, several
families of victims retained his services in
anticipation of bringing their own lawsuits.
Like MARCIA CLARK, his adversary in the
Simpson trial, Cochran has found fame and fortune
on the lecture circuit. He has given
speeches, has moderated panel discussions, and
has been a host on COURT TV. In 1998, Cochran
published his autobiography, Journey to Justice
which recounted his life story and a number of
the significant legal cases in which he was
involved, including the O.J. SIMPSON TRIAL.
Cochran now focuses his law practice on civil rights and personal injury cases. He has represented clients as diverse as ROSA PARKS and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. In 2002, representatives of Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network announced that it had retained Cochran to represent workers who had been laid off from the Enron Corporation.

FURTHER READINGS
“Johnnie Cochran to Represent Rosa Parks In Outkast
Appeal.”MTV. Available online at www.mtv.com/news/
articles/1432968/20000809/outkast.jhtml; website homepage:
www.mtv.com (accessed March 22, 2003).
Robertson, Dale. “Talent’s Untapped in Coaching Circles.”
Houston Chronicle. Available online at ;
website home page: (accessed
March 22, 2003).
Sales, Robert J. “Johnnie Cochran to be MLK Speaker.” MIT.
Available online at ; website homepage: (accessed March 22, 2003).
Court TV Internet site. Biographical data on Johnnie L.
Cochran, Jr. Available online at
(accessed November 20, 2003).

CROSS-REFERENCES
Bailey, Francis Lee; Clark,Marcia Rachel.