Defence lawyer in OJ Simpson murder trial dies aged 67

Published on Thursday 31 March 2005 02:00

THE charismatic lawyer Johnnie Cochran, famed for his successful defence of the American football star OJ Simpson on murder charges, has died from a brain tumour. He was 67.

Cochran was a crusader against police abuse, often in cases that involved black clients.

However, he is best known for his role in the "trial of the century". Simpson, a sports star-turned-actor, was charged with murder in 1995, accused of stabbing to death his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Cochran presented the case against his client as a conspiracy led by a bigoted white policeman.

In his 2002 autobiography, A Lawyer’s Life, Cochran said the trial "changed my life drastically and forever in ways impossible to even imagine. It obscured everything I had done previously".

A stylish dresser in court, he later became something of a pop-culture icon, appearing on television and films, often as himself.

Cochran began his career on the other side of the legal divide, as a prosecutor. A notable early target was the comedian Lenny Bruce, whom he prosecuted on obscenity charges in 1964.

His first big private case involved the 1966 shooting of a black man, Leonard Deadwyler, who had been racing to take his pregnant wife to hospital and was killed after being stopped by a Los Angeles policeman. The officer, who claimed self-defence, faced no charges and Cochran lost a civil lawsuit against the city, but the case established him as a major civil-rights lawyer.

His other famous clients included Michael Jackson, the Diff’rent Strokes actor Todd Bridges, and rappers Tupac Shakur and Snoop Doggy Dog.