Cochran’s Legacy Goes Beyond O.J.

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The defining moment for me in the O.J. Simpson trial was not Simpson’s acquittal and the firestorm that it ignited nationally. It was a note I got from an associate in Johnnie Cochran’s law firm. He said that Johnnie wanted me to know that he admired my comments on the case. I was one of the legion of talking head analysts during the trial, and like many of the others, I was skeptical, even critical, of some of Cochran’s maneuvers.


I thought he badly overplayed the race card, and deliberately played to the anti-police sentiments of some of the black jurors. But Cochran still went out of his way to pay me the compliment. Whether or not by design, it made me pay even closer attention to Cochran’s arguments and presentation in the trial and by the end of the trial, Cochran convinced me that there was more than enough reasonable doubt to acquit Simpson.


Most legal experts who worked with him and battled against him in major criminal and civil cases agreed that Cochran was more than a flamboyant, race conscious, courtroom showman. He also sought to use his prodigious talent to defend the rights of the poor and the dispossessed.


He was deeply influenced by the monumental legal battles of Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall. Cochran publicly credited them for inspiring him to champion civil rights causes, especially as it related to police abuse.


In 1965, Cochran represented the widow of Leonard Deadwyler, an unarmed black motorist shot by a Los Angeles police officer while he was taking his pregnant wife to the hospital. Deadwyler was among the legion of blacks who had been shot by the police under dubious circumstances. The officer was exonerated, but Cochran’s skill at fingering police abuse heightened public awareness of racism, police violence, and the need for major reforms in police practices.


He waged a quarter-century fight to free Black Panther Elmer Geronimo Pratt, who was falsely convicted of the murder of a white woman in 1972. Cochran exposed how the government used paid agents to frame black militants and disrupt black organizations. Pratt was released in 1997 and Cochran repeatedly said that the victory was the defining moment of his career.


The Simpson case was yet another example to Cochran of how a black defendant, even a rich black celebrity defendant, could be victimized by the criminal justice system.


Cochran meticulously picked apart the flaws, contradictions and inconsistencies in the prosecution’s arguments. The case was won on the evidence, or lack thereof, although Cochran paid a steep price. He would spend the next decade, in speeches, two autobiographies and several articles explaining his actions.


In his final years, Cochran railed at the Bush administration for trampling on civil rights in the war on terrorism. In one of his last major speeches at the mostly white, upper crust Commonwealth Club in Los Angeles in 2002, Cochran blasted then-Attorney General John Ashcroft for eroding civil rights and warned, “They’re not going to say later, ‘hey, you know, we’re just taking those for a little while until we work this little problem out.'”


Cochran understood that civil rights were not a “little problem” but a precious commodity to be safeguarded at all costs and that the Bush administration imperiled those rights. That’s why Johnnie Cochran should be remembered for much more than O.J.



*Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a political analyst and social issues commentator, and the author of “The Crisis in Black and Black” (Middle Passage Press).

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