Damn. I’m just hearing about this on the news.

Johnnie Cochran, Lawyer for O.J. Simpson, Dies at 67 (Update2)
March 29 (Bloomberg) — Johnnie Cochran Jr., an attorney who rose to fame when he helped win an acquittal for O.J. Simpson in a double-murder trial, died today. He was 67.

Cochran died at his home in Los Angeles, his family said in an e-mailed statement. He had been suffering from a brain tumor, the family said.

Cochran led Simpson’s so-called “Dream Team” during the 1995 case. During the televised trial, he referred to a glove prosecutors claimed Simpson wore during the crime: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Simpson, a former football star, had been accused of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

“Nobody could work the media or understand a downtown or South Central jury like Johnnie Cochran,” said Stanley Goldman, a professor at Loyola Law School. “Johnnie won the O.J. Simpson case in jury selection.”

Simpson said in a statement that “I loved him as a good Christian man and a great lawyer,” according to a Cable News Network report.

Cochran, the great-grandson of slaves, was born on Oct. 2, 1937, in Shreveport, Louisiana. After graduating from the University of California at Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1959, he received a law degree from Loyola Law School in 1962 at a time when there were very few black lawyers, Goldman said.

Pratt, Louima Cases

Cochran started his career representing people who were rounded up during the Los Angeles race riots in 1965. He represented Black Panther Geronimo Pratt in a murder case in 1972, which he lost. The charges were overturned more than 27 years later.

After the Simpson verdict, Cochran continued to be involved in civil liberties cases. Cochran represented Abner Louima, who was sodomized by officers with a broken broom handle in a New York City police station. Louima received an $8.75 million settlement from the city.

Cochran represented four New Jersey basketball players who were fired upon 11 times by police while stopped on Interstate 95. New Jersey settled the case for $13 million.

With Cochran as their lawyer, two men won a $240 million Florida jury verdict against Walt Disney Co. for allegedly stealing their idea for a sports-theme amusement park. Cochran has sued Lockheed Martin Corp. for racial bias and U.S. tobacco companies for illegally targeting children with advertising.

Cochran founded his own law firm, Cochran, Cherry, Givens & Smith LLP. The 125-attorney firm describes itself as the largest personal injury law firm.

In his 2002 book “A Lawyer’s Life,” Cochran said that the end of the Simpson trial was “the sea change” that altered his life “drastically and forever in ways impossible even to imagine.”

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