School Named After Johnnie Cochran

Los Angeles has renamed a public school after Johnnie Cochran, the late criminal defense lawyer who helped clear “Trial of the Century” murder defendant O.J. Simpson.

School district officials voted unanimously for the name change Tuesday, saying Cochran, who attended the former Mt. Vernon Middle School as a boy, was an “extraordinary, superb lawyer with movie-star celebrity status.”

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He accused Los Angeles police of framing his client because he was black and famously told the jury, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” in reference to a bloody glove found at Simpson’s house.

Simpson was charged with the 1994 killing of his ex-wife and her friend, Ron Goldman, in a court case dubbed the “Trial of the Century.”

He was acquitted for the murders in 1995 in a verdict that deeply split the country along racial lines.

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