Cochran was born on October 2, 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father was an insurance salesman, and his mother sold Avon products. The family relocated to the West Coast during the second wave of the Great Migration, settling in Los Angeles in 1949.
Cochran went to local schools and graduated first in his class from Los Angeles High School in 1955. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business economics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1959 and a Juris Doctor from the Loyola Law School in 1962.
Having finished his law studies and passed the California bar by 1963, Cochran took a job with the city of Los Angeles, serving as a deputy city attorney in the criminal division. There he worked as a prosecutor. In 1965 he entered private practice with the late Gerald Lenoir, a well-known local criminal lawyer. After a short period with Lenoir, he formed his own firm, Cochran, Atkins & Evans. Johnnie Cochran's career was launched from this office with a highly-publicized and inflammatory case. In May of 1966, a young black man named Leonard Deadwyler was shot dead by police as he tried to rush his pregnant wife to the hospital. Cochran represented Deadwyler's family, who accused the police of needless brutality in their son's murder. The Los Angeles Police Department insisted that the officers had acted in self-defense. Another memorable case further steered Cochran toward working on behalf of his race. In the early 1970s he went to court in defense of Geronimo Pratt, a former Black Panther who stood accused of murder. Cochran lost that case too, but he insisted that Pratt was railroaded by the F. B. I. and local police. Cochran has continued to press for a re-trial in the Pratt case. "Best in the West" - such headline-grabbing cases quickly made Cochran's name among the black community in Los Angeles, and by the late 1970s he was handling a number of police brutality and other criminal cases. In an abrupt about-face in 1978, however, he joined the Los Angeles County district attorney's office where one of his subordinates was a young lawyer named Gil Garcetti. Cochran has said that he took the job because he wanted to broaden his political contacts and refashion his image. Cochran's position at the district attorney's office did not spare him a brush with racist police. One afternoon as he drove his two young daughters across town in his Rolls Royce, he was pulled over. The police yelled at him to get out of the car with his hands up, and when he did he could see that they had drawn their guns. Cochran never publicized the incident, but he was deeply disturbed about its effect on his two daughters. Returning to private practice in 1983, Cochran established himself as "the best in the West. " One of his first major victories occurred in the case of Ron Settles, a college football player who police said had hanged himself in a jail cell after having been picked up for speeding. On the behalf of Settles's family, Cochran demanded that the athlete's body be exhumed and examined. A coroner determined that Settles had been strangled by a police choke hold. A pre-trial settlement brought the grieving family $760, 000. The Settles case settlement was the first in a series of damage awards that Cochran has won for clients-some observers estimate he has won between $40 and $43 million from various California municipalities and police districts in judgments for his clients. Success begot success for Cochran. The Settles case was followed by another emotional case in which an off-duty police officer molested a teenager and threatened her with bodily harm if she told anyone. In that case Cochran spurned an out-of-court settlement in six figures and took the issue to the courtroom - where a jury awarded his client $9. 4 million. A post-verdict settlement paid the young woman $4. 6 million. As Cochran's fame grew, his client list began to include more celebrities, of which pop singer Michael Jackson is the best known. On Jackson's behalf, Cochran arranged an out-of-court settlement with a boy who had accused the singer of molestation. Cochran had the case retired in such a way that the charges against Jackson were withdrawn, and Jackson could publicly proclaim his complete innocence. No celebrity trial was more followed than O. J. Simpson's trial, however. In the summer of 1994, Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. Simpson declared that he was innocent, and he engaged Cochran as part of an expensive "dream team" of lawyers dedicated to his defense. Before long, Cochran had replaced Robert Shapiro as leader of the "dream team" as the matter was brought to trial. Calling the O. J. Simpson trial a "classic rush-to-judgment case, " Cochran vowed to win an acquittal for the football star-turned-television celebrity. One week into the Simpson trial in February of 1995, Time reported that Cochran had "unveiled an unexpectedly strong defense. " With his engaging manner and sincerity, Cochran sought to poke holes in the case against Simpson as presented by district attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden. Piece by piece he challenged the evidence, paying special attention to the racist attitudes of one of the investigating officers, Mark Fuhrman. Cochran was effectiv - and controversial - in his closing arguments on Simpson's behalf. He claimed his client had been framed by a racist police officer, and that if such injustice were allowed to persist, it could lead to genocide as practiced by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Speaking to the jury, Cochran concluded: "If you don't speak out, if you don't stand up, if you don't do what's right, this kind of conduct will continue on forever. " After deliberating only four hours, the mostly black jury found Simpson not guilty on all counts. Observers called Cochran's remarks the "race card, " and some castigated the attorney for proceeding in this manner. Cochran offered no apologies for his strategy, claiming that his scenario represented the truth as he saw it. After handling the post-trial publicity, Cochran returned to other cases, including pending civil litigation against Simpson. The trial had its impact on Cochran's life. Once a celebrity lawyer only in Los Angeles, he was now a celebrity lawyer across America, receiving a million-dollar advance to write his memoirs and a hefty fee for any personal appearances he makes. Cochran had his share of negative publicity, however. In December 2003, Cochran was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In April 2004, he underwent surgery, which led to his staying away from the media. On March 29, 2005, he died at his home in Los Angeles, from the brain tumor.
Cochran married Barbara Berry Cochran in 1960. The couple divorced in 1977, and he married for the second time, to Sylvia Dale, in 1985.
