Posted on 03/29/2005 8:46:14 PM PST by kellynla
Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the masterful attorney who gained prominence as an early advocate for victims of police abuse then achieved worldwide fame for successfully defending football star O.J. Simpson on murder charges, died Tuesday. He was 67.
Cochran died of an inoperable brain tumor at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, according to his brother-in-law Bill Baker. He had been diagnosed with the brain tumor in December 2003, Baker said.
Initially, Cochran, his family and colleagues were secretive about his illness to protect the attorney's privacy as well as the network of Cochran law offices that largely draw their cachet from his presence. But Cochran confirmed in a September 2004 interview with The Times that he was being treated by neurosurgeon Keith Black at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Simpson on Tuesday praised Cochran from his home in Florida.
"I've got to say, I don't think I'd be home today without Johnnie," Simpson told Associated Press. "Johnnie is what's good about the law. He loved the system. I always tell people, if your kids or your loved ones got in trouble, you would want Johnnie. Even his adversaries respected him." Long before his defense of Simpson, Cochran challenged what many viewed as the Los Angeles Police Department's misconduct in its treatment of people under arrest when that behavior was still ignored by the court system and taken for granted by its victims. From the 1960s on, when he represented the widow of Leonard Deadwyler, a black motorist killed during a police stop in Los Angeles, Cochran took police abuse to court. He won historic financial settlements and helped bring about lasting changes in police procedure.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I wonder if he is standing at the pearly gates saying "but your honor, I honestly thought he was innocent".
I'm thinking that now Judas Iscariot may win his appeal...
Although I try very hard not to wish ill on anyone, I (as well as a lot of cops) really wished old Johnny would stop practicing law. He personally made Los Angeles a more dangerous place by tipping the pendulum too far against the police and in favor of the criminals.
As the mother of a police officer I feel the same way!
I disliked him but wish his family well.
If the coffin fits,
You must lie in it!
I agree completely! My brother is a police officer.
Thats bad,My apologies..
"If the brain aint fit
you must exit "
Well said - the guy went for the "peoples" money and got it - smart? Yes.
Sorry Johnny, you did not live to a ripe old age and enjoy it. You got yours for ripping us off and letting bad people walk free. Shame your heirs are on the gravy train.
RIP - glad you are gone.
Not what I hear. Go over to the 'Terribots' threads and they have Jesse Jackson on the way to give him food and water. They claim Johnnie responded by waiving out the hearse window!
Two Cochranisms from the other thread.
"If it's a tumor in your head, you'll soon be dead!" - Rockitz
"If he doesn't stir, you must inter!" - Luddite Patent Counsel
"If the tumor don't fit the body must quit."
Sorry, that should have read... Ron Goldman.
Drive a wooden stake through his heart, just to make sure...
I am trying to feel bad about this, honestly I am, but I cannot. There is justice for Ron and Nicole tonight.
What a horrible man.
He decided to play a race card from the bottom of the deck in a murder trial and sent race relations back 25 years in the process.
There's a hot time in the old afterlife tonight I would imagine.
How many lives did that one man ruin with that trial across the country?
This assumes a lot about Nicole Simpson and Ron Brown - they may not have made it into the pearly gates themselves. Being murdered does not grant a person an automatic ticket.
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