Read all about it:
http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/03/29/cochran-050329.html
If there were a Hell, the Devil’s got his advocate…
I was no fan of Mr. Cochran but all he did was what he was paid to do. Just like any other defense attorney.
Should we get rid of them?
No, just grin fiendishly when the more egregious ones bite it.
“Because I got paid” *in an of itself * seems an insufficient defense of bad behavior.
No, we still need defense attorneys. But you probably already knew that.
Being a defense attorney isn’t bad behavior. As Horace Rumpole said, a defense attorney is like a taxi, taking the fares that flag him down. Sure, Cochran defended unsavory characters, but that’s what defense attorneys do.
Hi gobear! I guess I was unclear. I was simply trying to make the point that getting paid to do something does not absolve one of moral responsibility. I think the second comment in my post makes it clear that I think it is OK to be a defense attorney.
If you want guys as talented as Johnny Cochran (and yes, he was certainly talented) to be on the prosecution side, you’re gonna have to pay DAs a lot more money than they’re getting right now, not that they aren’t already well paid. I don’t see that happening soon. Doesn’t seem like there’s an easy solution to me.
Yes; however, good taxi drivers deliver their fares without running red lights, cutting off other drivers, and scaring the piss out of pedestrians. Similarly, ethical criminal defense attorneys defend their clients without destroying reputations, impugning sound evidentiary practices, and laying waste to established legal theories.
Of course, if you want to get to the airport in 10 minutes, you might hire the insane cabby and say “screw those other folks,” and if you’re in deep legal doo-doo, you might hire Johnny Cochran and say “screw ethics.” I say “screw Johnny Cochran” – let him take his scorched-earth litigation to divorce court where it belongs.
Ah, OK, My bad. I just wanted to be clear. Carry on.
“Saint Peter…THIS is CHEWbacca…”
gobear, if I email you, will you open it? There is something I would like to convey to you.
Sure.
Just as ethical prosecutors prosecute the defendant without destroying reputations, impugning sound evidentiary practices, and laying waste to established legal theories. Right. The tone of a few here seems to be “Of course defense lawyers are fine, as long as they don’t get the defendant acquitted!”
A man whose major accomplishment in life was to get a double-murderer off scot-free. What a thing to reflect on while lying on one’s death bed.
Let’s face it: At best the guy was a self-aggrandizing media whore, and at worst unethical. His defense of OJ involved essentially inventing conspiracy theories out of whole cloth. It’s one thing to accuse the LAPD of harboring racist cops, which no one doubts. It’s quite another to accuse them of elaborate schemes to frame the defandant, and dreaming scenerios that ultimately impugn the victims. IMO, Cochran crossed way over the line from diligent defense to moral turpitude. In America, we apparently regard such behavior as the mark of a brilliant attourney. I think it’s a stark example of how our legal system is often not so much a system of justice as an elaborate game show, where winning is all that really matters. This, IMO, is Cochran’s legacy.
In a way, I’m kind of glad he’s not able to stick HIS fingers into the Schiavo mess now that Brother Jesse has stepped up. Rest in peace, Johnny, but I have to admire the timing.
Geez, between the Pope, Jerry Falwell, and now this, I’m tempted to wonder if some celestial big-shot is trying to wile away the hours…
Cochran was a brilliant, charismatic, larger-than-life guy who accomplished a lot of good in his life.
Don’t blame him for O.J. walking! The LAPD (or elements of it) planted enough evidence to convict any ten men, and Marcia Clark only exacerbated it with nonsensical claims like the ski cap being a disguise. They had O.J. parking at the curb and trailing blood in through the front door at the same time they had him jumping fences in the back yard, banging into Kato’s air conditioner and dropping gloves on his way into the house from the back. And blood was showing up on Nicole’s gate and in the Bronco (which oddly didn’t have much blood in it to begin with) weeks after the murders.
Given all that, I don’t think you can point the finger at Cochran and say he was the reason Simpson was acquitted. Hell, I would have voted to acquit given the mess that the LAPD and Clark & Co. made of that case!
[Quote=Night of the Living Dead]
He’s dead. Theres another one for the fire.
[/Quote=Night of the Living Dead]