ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENCE; GOODBYE

There are perhaps no modern attorneys whose achievements and reknown are lauded both nationally and internationally as the late Johnnie Cochran's.
The trial of O.J. Simpson which was televised internationally through CNN and local media channels was primarily responsible for this. I was in China when Simpson was acquitted in October 1995 and there Cochran and friends were on covers of newsmagazines everywhere. I was dining at a restaurant in Soweto in South Africa in December 2000 when a waiter upon hearing that I was a lawyer in Canada, told me that Johnnie Cochran had sat in the very chair I was sitting in, a few years back. His death was reported everywhere.
I need not repeat what has already been said about Johnnie Cochran.
His achievements are also summarized on the website of his firm. What is missing in all the reports is what Johnnie Cochran himself said about his work as a lawyer. What was his philosophy? hat was the formular for his success? What ticked him? Defence lawyers can learn a lot about the practice of law from Cochran's two books: JOURNEY TO JUSTICE (1996) and A LAWYER'S LIFE (2002). The first book not only talks about the O.J. Simpson trial, but also about his life before O.J; the triumph over police choke holding kills of black men; the
lengthy saga of Geronimo Pratt and other cases.
 The Second book deals more with his summation of what justice is all about in America and by extension to all American-like countries of the western world. It is from that book that his philosophy oozes. Every criminal lawyer thinks and talks about the justiceness or lack thereof the justice system.
in a multiracial society like the US and other countries, race always surfaces in the justice or injustice of the system. So does economics.
Johnnie Cochran perceived the system in these terms: "Money plays the most important role in the criminal justice system of the United States of America. ..The system does not work equally for all defendants. It is deeply flawed. There is no question that minorities are treated differently by the system than white people...But I have always believed that the breakdown
in the system is not primarily racial; but is economic....A person is innocent until proven broke". But Cochran was judged as having played the race card in the O.J. Simpson, which he rejected and if you read his books, you will find that his view of race in American justice was more complicated that the knee-jerk "race card" attribution of the lazy few. Economics was the determining factor: "the outcome of a trial depends substantially on economic factors. Given exactly the same set of circumstances money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man".  Racism exists within that larger system." I am pretty sensitive to issues of race-based unfairness in the legal system. It is not the same for African-Americans as it is for whites...I have seen minorities being abused by the system my entire career. It infuriates me".
A defence lawyer encounters police, prosecutors and judges everyday. Cochran's long experience was that ,"half of all cases in which a person was found guilty of a crime and was later proved to be innocent, there has been evidence of police or prosecutorial misconduct....". "When a cop plays fast and loose with a citizen's constitutional rights it is generally isn't an aberration, it's a behavioral pattern". With regards to judges, Cochran was of the view that one is luck "if he is fortunate enough to find a judge who understands what the Constitution means....". As for the defence he used a well-tried formula: "The defense strategy is pretty much always the same; destroy the credibility of the prosecution's witness and then present evidence that your client is not guilty". Johnnie Cochran spiced up his defences with rhymes and themes, the most popular is of course, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit". The original theme however, was "if it does not make sense, you must find for the defense". Other themes Cochran
has used include: "If he were white, he would still be alive", "If  you design and build a boat, it must be able to stay afloat", "If you pollute, we'll file suit", "If you design and build a mall, it must be open to one and all". From these quotations, you can see that Cochran was not only a superb criminal lawyer per excellence, he was the ultimate civil litigator, as
feared in the criminal bar as in the civil bar, a rare combination
everywhere.
To me, Cochran's legacy was and is,  his skilful and successful use of the law, despite its flaws, to  fight and win racial profiling cases, thereby bestowing justice to the most despised members of society.

mhamalengwa@sympatico.ca/forthedefence@yahoo.ca.