JOHNNIE Cochran became known as the go-to lawyer for the rich and famous in the 1980s and 90s, culminating in what many consider to be one of the most popular – and polarizing – murder trials in the nation.
Just one decade before Johnnie Cochran passed away, he became a household name, known for his leading role in the defense and ultimate acquittal of OJ Simpson's murder trial against his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
Who was Johnnie Cochran?
Johnnie Cochran was an attorney known for representing some of the nation's most famous actors, athletes, and musicians in the 1980s and 1990s.
Cochran was born on October 2, 1937, in Shreveport, Louisiana.
His father, Johnnie Cochran Sr., was an insurance salesman, while his mother, Hattie B. Cochran, sold makeup, cosmetics, and skin care products for Avon.
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In 1949, during the second wave of the Great Migration, which involved more than six million Black Americans moving from the rural south, his family moved to California, eventually settling down in Los Angeles.
Cochran graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955, the first of his class, and later went on to earn a degree in business economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.
After graduating college in 1959, Cochran went on to earn his Juris Doctor from the Loyola Law School in 1962.
He was reportedly inspired to pursue a law career after seeing – and being inspired by – Thurgood Marshall's legal victory in Brown v. Board of Education.
After passing the California bar exam in 1963, Cochran became a deputy city attorney in Los Angeles.
He eventually opened his own firm, Cochran, Atkins & Evans, a few years later.
By the late 1970s, Cochran had established himself as a reputable lawyer in the Black community, litigating high-profile criminal and police brutality cases.
In 1978, he left his practice for a position as the First Assistant District Attorney in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.
In the early 1980s, however, he returned to private practice, opening the Johnnie L Cochran Jr. law firm, and began calling himself "the best in the West," when it came to legal representation.
During his time as an attorney, Cochran represented some of the nation's biggest names, including Michael Jackson, Sean Diddy Combs, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Black Panther member Elmer Geronimo Pratt, and 1992 Los Angeles riot beating victim Reginald Oliver Denny.
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Cochran's claim to fame, however, came from his role in the murder trial of OJ Simpson, which lasted nearly nine months.
Cochran was part of Simpson's high-profile defense "Dream Team," which included Robert Shapiro, Cochran, Robert Kardashian, and other notable attorneys.
Cochran was ultimately able to convince the jury that Simpson was not guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt," and that the police had planted evidence against him.
He famously used the rhyming phrase, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," following Simpson's difficulty putting on a glove stained with his blood and the blood of the victims, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Simpson, though acquitted, was later found liable for their deaths in a civil suit from the victims' families, and shunned by his celebrity pals.
Simpson passed away from prostate cancer on April 10, 2024, at the age of 76.
Was Johnnie Cochran married?
Despite keeping busy with a burgeoning legal career, Johnnie Cochran also found the time to focus on his personal life.
Cochran married his first wife, Barbara Jean Berry, in late 1959.
She first filed for divorce in 1967, but the couple eventually worked it out and got back together.
A decade later, she filed for divorce again in 1977, accusing Cochran of domestic violence and physical and mental abuse.
During the infamous OJ Simpson murder trial, Berry released a memoir, titled Life After Johnnie Cochran: Why I Left the Sweetest-Talking, Most Successful Black Lawyer in LA.
In the book, she claimed that Cochran and Simpson were "mirror images of each other in their apparent disdain for women," as reported by the Daily Mail.
Berry never commented on the memoir, nor did she confirm or deny Cochran's allegations that her abuse claims were "not true."
"I will not discuss it. I never said I wanted to be interviewed," she reportedly told the Los Angeles Times in 1995.
Cochran and Berry's relationship, with or without abuse, was still somewhat tumultuous.
Despite welcoming two children together, daughters Tiffany and Melodie, Cochran also had a child out of wedlock around the same time.
He reportedly welcomed son Jonathan with his mistress, Patricia Sikora, while he was still married to Berry.
Patricia went public with her 28-year affair with Cochran during Simpson's trial, shocking both his first and second wife, Sylvia Dale.
Cochran met Sylvia Dale, a sales analyst, in the early 1980s.
Dale later went on to build a successful business, buying newsstands at popular airports and pocketing commissions from publishers to place and sell their magazines and papers.
The duo officially got married in 1985.
According to actress Keesha Sharp, who portrayed Dale in the FX miniseries The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, Dale was instrumental in getting Cochran to take on the biggest case of his career.
“For my character [Sylvia Dale Cochran], you didn’t realize she was the woman holding up Johnnie,” the actress said, as reported by People.
“She’s the one who encouraged him to take the case otherwise he wasn’t going to.”
Dale and Cochran remained married until the attorney died in 2005.
What was Johnnie Cochran’s cause of death?
Johnnie Cochran was diagnosed with a brain tumor in December 2003.
After undergoing surgery in April 2004, Cochran shied away from the spotlight, spending his time with family and close friends.
He reportedly hosted friends at his Los Feliz home, vacationed in Italy, and continued to make plans for the future of his practice.
On March 29, 2005, he died from "a malignant, golfball-sized" brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles.
He was surrounded by his wife, Dale Mason, his father, "The Chief" aka Johnnie Cochran Sr., his brother-in-law, Bill Baker, his son, Jonathan, and his daughters, Melody and Tiffany.
Tiffany recalled her father walking her down the aisle at her 2004 summer wedding.
“He did it as only my dad could – with grace and style, elegance and his signature smile,” Tiffany Cochran Edwards said, as reported by the New York Post.
A memorial service was held on April 6, 2005, and his remains were interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.
His funeral was attended by many of his friends and former clients, including OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson.
“He was confident, humble, capable, generous – and he always erred on the side of what’s best for the client,” Keith Givens, Cochran's friend and an Alabama lawyer who ran his expanding practice, said.
“He left a tremendous legacy," he added.
