Johnnie Cochran Quotes (26 Quotes)

The president appoints the judges. Your lives and your children's lives can change by all of these appellate court judges who will be appointed who will reinterpret laws, and things can change.

On January 10, 1963, I was sworn in as a lawyer, so next January 10 I will have practiced law for 40 years, and I've loved every minute of it.

I understand about this idea of terror and what it means to Americans and this idea that we can't just walk around free like we did; life has changed.

I not here to say that every African-American descendent of slaves should receive 40 acres and, I guess now, a SUV. That should not happen. But there should be some compensation for those who are bottom-stuck by virtue of people who have been enslaved and then second-class citizens have had to go through.

When you look across the nation, this has been a killing time. We pledge we will be relentless in our pursuit of justice in Riverside,

Since the Puffy Combs case in New York, I will not try any more criminal cases.

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

This is an affront to jurors everywhere, particularly this jury. Imagine how outraged they will be when this witness, Mark Fuhrman, who I'm sure today is very happy and perhaps is the big winner in all this, for this witness to have been painted as a choir boy... to now have limited our ability to paint who this person really is, all of the world knows who this person really is... but now our jury won't. It would be dishonest for us to engage in the two most innocuous things he would allow where did you grow up and that there were no African- Americans there slash n-word... the most innocuous areas and he leaves everything else out. That is misleading this jury. It's dishonest and we don't want any part of that. It is absolutely outrageous for us to have to endure this at this point. O. J. Simpson is a man who has been wrongfully accused and we think, framed. And the cover-up continues. We think the defense is winning this case.

It was time in America for African Americans to take retribution for the legal crimes that had been committed against them for almost three centuries.

We've got to be judged by how we do in times of crisis.

Black jurors sit on juries every day and convict black people every day.

The only mention I'll make of the Simpson case is that it provided a sea-change for all of our lives. I'm still the same lawyer as I was before, but the opportunities were somewhat different and I was asked to move to New York, at least part of the time, to do a television show.

Judge, the tapes are sickening, and you know...I don't know so much about conflict, but there is certain parts about Lt. York that I tell you what the real problem may be, even more than this, and this is a very delicate issue and I don't want to talk about this out here. It is going to have to do with credibility, because, you know, her declaration... this guy, unless he is absolutely lying... and Marcia will back me up on this, the contacts he has with Lt. York are the kind that are very hard to forget him.

If it doen't make sense, you should find for the defense.

These were tragic deaths. I think that people don't understand that we, on the defense, felt that very strongly also.

Fuhrman is a nightmare, but he's America's nightmare, not just black people's nightmare. And everybody needs to understand that.

Fuhrman thought to himself, 'I'm going to get that guy ... and in '94 he had his chance.'

I'm a big believer in the fact that life is about preparation, preparation, preparation.

Nothing is going to clear his client of what took place here, ... He will never be able to explain a 16-year-old, or any person, in custody slammed on the police car, punched in the face when he's helpless. There is no explanation for that.

has bruises all over his body.

We proved that the most important evidence against O.J. Simpson had supposedly been found in unusual places by a thoroughly racist LAPD detective-a detective who had been caught on audiotapes made years earlier admitting the LAPD planted evidence-a detective who for some unknown reason had been present in places he had no legitimate reason to be.

When I first started practicing law in the 1960s, no person had ever won a case against the City of Los Angeles for violation of their civil rights. There came a time when I felt morally I just could not try these cases anymore. I then left the office and my time in private practice has been interesting to say the least.

I decided I wanted to be a lawyer when I was 11 years of age.

Nobody has had the courage to say this is wrong. You are empowered to say this is wrong ... Stop this cover-up Stop this cover-up

In this room we're all here together, but there's probably a lot of different views, people sitting here thinking, I don't own any slaves, all the slaves are dead. Why am I responsible? My family were immigrants, too.

Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.