Griffin Speaks

LEGAL EAGLE JOHNNIE COCHRAN 
DEAD AT 67

I nearly fell out of my chair when CNN reported that the legendary Defense superstar Johnnie Cochran was dead at the young age of 67. He died at his Los Angeles, California home. He was suffering from an inoperable brain tumor that was diagnosed in December 2003. Johnnie’s passing has made many attorneys in the African American legal community very sad. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to him. 

African American attorneys were elevated in status as the eyes of the world witnessed Johnnie Cochran’s brilliant defense of O. J. Simpson. I am on record with my belief that O.J. Simpson was guilty of the 1994 murders of his ex- wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. I am also on record with my belief that Johnnie Cochran was such a brilliant trial attorney that he even convinced O.J. Simpson that he was innocent.  

Before Johnnie Cochran’s defense of O.J. most African American attorneys were viewed with suspicion that we were not as competent as other attorneys were. African American attorneys were often portrayed in the media as though we were as incompetent as Attorney Algonquin J. Calhoun was. He was the attorney character in the Amos and Andy show portrayed by actor Johnny Lee. In one episode Atty. Calhoun was sitting behind his desk in his office when he was asked if he knew where a good attorney could be found.  Atty. Calhoun scratched his head and shuffled his feet then responded, “Sur, I’s don’t know one!” 

Thanks to Judge Vanzetta Penn McPherson and Judge Deloris R. Boyd former owners of the African American bookstore Roots and Wings, my dad, Dr. Melvin J. Griffin Sr. and I were able to personally meet and greet Johnnie Cochran Jr.  Atty. Cochran visited the bookstore to sign his autobiography, “My Journey to Justice: The Autobiography of Johnnie Cochran Jr.”. During that visit I learned that he was the great-grandson of slaves, grandson of a sharecropper, and son of an insurance salesman. I also learned that his mentor was the late Thurgood Marshall. Today critics are attacking the competence of Thurgood Marshall. However it is difficult for critics to get away with tarnishing Johnnie’s reputation because people were able to see Johnnie’s competence with their own eyes on national television. 

In 1995 I benefited from the elevation that African American attorneys had received because of the success of Johnnie Cochran Jr. Two months after his successful defense of O.J. Simpson I made Alabama history by being hired as the first African American Chief Legal Counsel for an Alabama State Agency. I honestly believe that before the O. J. trial it would have never happened. I remember when United States Senator Jeff Sessions then Attorney General Sessions gave his blessings for me to interview at the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. I went before the three members Board that at that time consisted of two white members and one black member. The Board had never had an African American Chief Legal Counsel since it was created in 1939. The black member was the late Civil Rights Activist Rev. John Nettles. I interviewed and landed the job as the first African American Chief Legal Counsel for an Alabama State Government Agency. I would later be promoted to the highest legal merit system position of Attorney 4 making me the second black in the state to attain that rank. Prior to that time Administrative Law Judge Milt Belcher was the first and only African American Attorney 4.Today there are currently five other African American Chief Legal Counsels in Alabama State government. They are: Gilda Williams, Alabama Board of Nursing, Anita Archie, Alabama Development Office, Norbert Williams, Alabama State Employees Association, Courtney Tarver, Mental Health, and Joan Davis, Post Secondary Education. In my opinion we all owe a great deal to the late Attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. He is gone but will never be forgotten.

Greg Griffin is a free lance writer. You can read his previous articles by visiting his web page at www.greggriffin.com