Johnnie Cochran was an American trial lawyer best known for leading O.J. Simpson’s defense team to an acquittal in 1995 and for decades of civil rights litigation against police departments. Born October 2, 1937, in Shreveport, Louisiana, he built his career in Los Angeles, founded a law firm in 1968 that still bears his name, and died of a brain tumor on March 29, 2005, at age 67. His work changed how Americans thought about criminal defense, race, and police accountability.
From Shreveport to the Los Angeles Bar
Cochran’s family moved from Louisiana to Los Angeles when he was young. His father sold insurance and his mother sold Avon products, and both pushed education. He earned a business administration degree from UCLA in 1959 and a law degree from Loyola Law School in 1962.1Loyola Marymount University. Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Chair in Civil Rights
After passing the bar in 1963, he became one of the first Black deputy city attorneys in Los Angeles, working as a criminal prosecutor for about two years before moving into private practice. In the late 1970s the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office brought him back, and he rose to Assistant District Attorney, the office’s third-ranking position. There he helped create a Domestic Violence Council and a Sexual Assault Program.1Loyola Marymount University. Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Chair in Civil Rights That time inside the prosecution shaped how he later took government cases apart from the other side of the aisle.
The O.J. Simpson Trial
The 1995 criminal trial of O.J. Simpson for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman was the most prominent case of Cochran’s career. Robert Shapiro originally assembled the defense team, but Cochran took over as lead counsel during the trial and became the public face of what the press called the “Dream Team.” F. Lee Bailey, Barry Scheck, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Carl Douglas, Shawn Chapman Holley, Gerald Uelmen, and Peter Neufeld all worked the case.
Cochran’s strategy attacked the integrity of the evidence and the officers who collected it. The pivotal blow landed on LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman, who testified that he had found a bloody glove at Simpson’s property. Under cross-examination by Bailey, Fuhrman denied ever using racial slurs. The defense then produced tape recordings in which Fuhrman used racial epithets dozens of times and spoke about police operating above the law. The judge let the jury hear two excerpts. Fuhrman’s credibility collapsed, and the chain of custody on key evidence went with it.
The trial’s defining moment came when prosecutor Christopher Darden asked Simpson to try on a pair of blood-stained leather gloves believed worn during the murders. Simpson appeared to struggle pulling them over the latex gloves he had to wear underneath, telling the courtroom they were “too tight.” Darden later acknowledged the demonstration was a mistake, pointing to glove shrinkage he had not accounted for. Cochran turned the scene into his closing with a line that entered the American lexicon: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” The jury deliberated for under four hours and returned a not-guilty verdict.
Civil Rights Cases Against Police
The Simpson trial is the case most people associate with Cochran, but suing police departments is what he did longest. He took his first major police misconduct case in 1966, representing the widow of Leonard Deadwyler, a Black man shot and killed by an LAPD officer while speeding his wife to the hospital in labor. The widow lost the wrongful death suit. The case taught Cochran how hard civil accountability for officers was to secure, and it set the direction of his career.
In 1981, Cochran represented the family of Ron Settles, a Cal State Long Beach football player who died in a Signal Hill jail cell. Police called it suicide by hanging. Cochran pushed for an exhumation and second autopsy that cast serious doubt on the official account, and the family settled for roughly $1 million. The case became an early example of using civil litigation to force accountability when prosecutors did not charge officers.
His civil rights work reached well beyond Los Angeles. In 1997, Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was assaulted by New York City police officers while in custody. Cochran and co-counsel sued under 42 U.S.C. ยง 1983, the federal statute allowing suits against government officials who violate constitutional rights while acting under color of law.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights The case settled in 2001 for $8.75 million, then the largest police brutality settlement in New York City history. The city paid $7.125 million and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association paid the remaining $1.625 million.
The Geronimo Pratt Case
The case Cochran said haunted him longest was that of Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, a Black Panther Party leader convicted in 1972 of murdering a white schoolteacher during a 1968 Los Angeles robbery. Cochran defended Pratt at the original trial and came to believe he had been framed, though he later admitted dismissing some of Pratt’s early claims as paranoia.
The prosecution had rested heavily on testimony from Julius “Julio” Butler, a fellow Panther and former police officer. What neither the defense nor the jury knew was that Butler had been serving as an informant for both the LAPD and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. Prosecutors never disclosed the relationship. Cochran and attorney Stuart Hanlon worked for decades to overturn the conviction. In 1997 a judge vacated it, finding that prosecutors had suppressed evidence favorable to the defense and that Butler’s credibility would have been destroyed on cross-examination had the defense known. Pratt had served 27 years. Cochran later called the case “a twilight zone of deceit, dishonesty, betrayal and official corruption.”
Other High-Profile Clients
Cochran’s private practice drew public figures facing serious charges. In 1996 he represented Snoop Dogg on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges tied to a 1993 shooting. He attacked the police handling of evidence and called only a single witness against the prosecution’s twelve. Snoop Dogg was acquitted of murder, and the manslaughter count ended in a mistrial.
In 2001 Cochran co-counseled with Benjamin Brafman in the defense of Sean “Puffy” Combs on gun possession and bribery charges stemming from a 1999 Manhattan nightclub shooting. Combs was acquitted on all counts.
Cochran also represented Michael Jackson during the 1993 allegations of child sexual abuse, serving as Jackson’s attorney when the civil claims were resolved through an out-of-court settlement. He stated publicly that the settlement was not an admission of guilt.
Television and Books
As his national profile grew, Cochran moved into legal commentary. In January 1997 he began co-hosting “Cochran & Grace” on Court TV with prosecutor Nancy Grace, pairing his defense perspective against her prosecution viewpoint on current cases. He later hosted his own program, “Johnnie Cochran Tonight,” on the same network, and appeared regularly as a legal analyst through the late 1990s and early 2000s.
He published two books. His 1996 memoir Journey to Justice covered his upbringing, his police misconduct cases, and the Simpson trial. His second, A Lawyer’s Life, continued his reflections on the legal system and the cases that shaped him.
The Cochran Firm
Cochran founded his Los Angeles law firm in 1968, shortly after leaving his first stint as a city prosecutor. Over the following decades it grew into one of the country’s largest plaintiffs’ firms, with offices in multiple states and a practice spanning personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice, employment discrimination, product liability, and class actions alongside criminal defense and civil rights work. It still operates under his name.
Death
Cochran died on March 29, 2005, at age 67, from an inoperable brain tumor. His health had declined in the preceding years, pulling him away from the courtroom and the television work of his final professional chapter. His career spanned more than four decades and left a lasting mark on American criminal defense, police accountability litigation, and the public conversation about race in the justice system.