Celebrity Lawyer Johnnie Cochran Dead at 67

The lawyer who became a household name after helping O. J. Simpson win an acquittal in his sensational trial for murder has died at his home in Los Angeles.

Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., the celebrity attorney who gained notoriety during the O. J. Simpson murder trial for his famous catchphrase, "If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit," died from a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles Tuesday. He was 67. His family released a statement shortly afterward saying, "Certainly Johnnie’s career will be noted as one marked by 'celebrity' cases and clientele, but he and his family were most proud of the work he did on behalf of those in the community." Cochran was a beloved figure in the black community, admired both for his relentless pursuit of justice and for helping to fund a UCLA scholarship, a low-income housing complex and a New Jersey legal academy, among other charitable endeavors.

Although he is probably most well known for his flamboyant defense of Simpson, wearing colorful suits and ties and engaging in similarly colorful courtroom oratory, the acquittal of Simpson was simply the most highly publicized victory in a career studded with victories, often in cases with racial undertones. Cochran was a black lawyer known for championing the causes of black defendants, both famous and unknowns. According to Cochran, "The clients I’ve cared about the most are the No Js, the ones who nobody knows." His office walls proudly displayed framed copies of the multimillion-dollar award checks he won throughout his career for ordinary citizens who alleged abuse by the police. Cochran once said, "People in New York and Los Angeles, especially mothers in the African-American community, are more afraid of the police injuring or killing their children then they are of muggers on the corner."

Cochran’s career included high-profile acquittals of football great Jim Brown on rape and assault charges, rapper Tupac Shakur on a weapons charge, actor Todd Bridges on attempted murder charges, and rapper Snoop Dogg on a murder charge. The moment Cochran referred to as the "happiest day of his life practicing law" was when he helped free former Black Panther Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, who had spent 27 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. By the time Simpson contacted him to ask for his help, Cochran had already achieved a star status of his own in the legal world. In the black community, when defendants found themselves facing serious charges, they were regularly told, "Get Johnnie."

But the attention and fame Cochran had garnered from other celebrity cases was nothing compared to the fame the Simpson trial brought him. His "if it doesn’t fit" phrase was parodied for years afterward, and still is, perhaps because some legal experts have called it the turning point in Simpson’s trial that resulted in his acquittal. Cochran used the phrase during a dramatic moment in the courtroom when Simpson was asked to try on a pair of bloodstained gloves to show jurors that they did not fit his large hands. Soon after the display, the jury found Simpson not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife and her friend. After Simpson’s acquittal, Cochran was a regular guest on TV talk shows, traveled around the world delivering speeches about his career as a lawyer, and was asked to do his own Court TV show. He was parodied endlessly in comedy films and on television shows including "Seinfeld" and "South Park." Cochran’s personal favorite of the many parodies was in the movie "Lethal Weapon 4," where comedian Chris Rock advises a suspect that he has a right to an attorney, but warns him, "If you get Johnnie Cochran, I’ll kill you."

Cochran always enjoyed having comedians poke fun at him, and even quoted several of them in his autobiography, A Lawyer’s Life. "It was fun. At times it was a lot of fun," he wrote. "And I knew that accepting it good-naturedly, even participating in it, helped soothe some of the angry feelings from the Simpson case." His motives were well placed, since Simpson’s verdict had divided the country along racial lines, with most blacks believing Simpson was innocent and most whites certain that he was guilty. Also, most of the people who considered Simpson to be guilty became enraged at Cochran, since he was the lead attorney in a group of "dream team" expensive lawyers including F. Lee Bailey, Robert Shapiro, Barry Scheck, and Peter Neufeld. But despite the public’s reaction to the verdict, the outcome proved to be the pinnacle of success in the legal arena for Cochran, who was already well respected for his work in the Los Angeles legal profession for over thirty years.

Cochran’s greatest hero was Thurgood Marshall, the attorney who successfully petitioned the U. S. Supreme Court to outlaw school segregation in 1954, during the sensationalistic Brown vs. Board of Education case, and who later became the Supreme Court’s first black justice. "I didn’t know too much about what a lawyer did, or how he worked, but I knew that if one man could cause this great stir, then the law must be a wondrous thing," Cochran recounted in his biography. "I read everything I could find about Thurgood Marshall and confirmed that a single dedicated man could use the law to change society." So after graduating from UCLA, Cochran earned a law degree from Loyola University and set about pursuing his own dream of using the law to change society for the better.