By Mark Fisher
It was late, nearing midnight, during O.J. Simpson's murder
trial in Los Angeles. Simpson's lead attorney, Johnnie
Cochran, had promised me an interview but had
warned that we'd have to squeeze it in during off
-hours. There weren't many off hours during the
insanity of the Trial of the Century.
"Meet me at the office late," Cochran said.
How late, I asked.
"Doesn't matter," Cochran replied. "No matter how
late you come, I'll be there."
Forty midnights in a row at the office had left the
lawyer in a contemplative mood. The spectacle
of the Simpson matter had long since ceased to
impress or appall. Every bit of legal strategy
and media manipulation had been combed over
so incessantly that there really weren't many
questions left to ask. So I asked the only
question I was really curious about.
Cochran by this point was well past ritual. So he
dished, off the record, of course. Cochran died in 2005,
so, by tradition of the craft, those comments are now
fair game.
"There's something wrong with him," Cochran said,
and he talked about other clients he'd had who somehow
managed to persuade themselves that they hadn't
done what they actually had done.
Simpson was a big star, a hero to some, a talented
person. But, said Cochran, "I wouldn't believe him
if he told me the sun was coming up again tomorrow morning."
And then the lawyer went back to work
on a defense so wonderfully constructed that it got
off a guy who had done a truly terrible deed.
PS: I'll never forget that look on Kardashian's face
when the verdict was read......
"My God, .....these idiot's actually believe... he didn't do it!"
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