WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30.2005
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5A
OBITUARY
Cochran dies from brain tumor
BY LINDA DEUTSCH THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who became a legal superstar after helping clear O.J. Simpson during a sensational murder trial in which he uttered the famous quote "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," died yesterday. He was 67.
Cochran died of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles, his family said.
"Certainly, Johnnie's career will be noted as one marked by 'celebrity' cases and clientele," his family said in a statement. "But he and his family were most proud of the work he did on behalf of those in the community."
With his colorful suits and
ties, his gift for courtroom oratory and a knack for coining memorable phrases, Cochran was a vivid addition to the pantheon of best-known American barristers.
The "if it doesn't fit" phrase would be quoted and parodied for years afterward. It derived from a dramatic moment during which Simpson tried on a pair of bloodstained "murder gloves" to show jurors they did not fit. Some legal experts called it the turning point in the trial.
Soon after, jurors found the Hall of Fame football star not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
For Cochran, Simpson's acquittal was the crowning
achievement in a career notable for victories, often in cases with racial themes. He was a black man known for championing the causes of black defendants. Some of them, like Simpson, were famous, but more often than not they were unknowns.
"The clients I've cared about the most are the No Js, the ones who nobody knows," said Cochran, who proudly displayed copies in his office of the multimillion-dollar checks he won for ordinary citizens who said they were abused by police.
"People in New York and Los Angeles, especially mothers in the African-American community, are more afraid of the police injuring or killing their children than they are of muggers on the corner," he once
By the time Simpson called, the byword in the black community for defendants facing serious charges was: "Get Johnnie."
said.
Over the years, Cochran represented football great Jim Brown on rape and assault charges, actor Todd Bridges on attempted murder charges, rapper Tupae Shakur on a weapons charge and rapper Snoop Dogg on a murder charge.
He also represented former Black Panther Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, who spent 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. When Cochran helped Pratt win his freedom in 1997 he called the moment "the happiest day of my life practicing law."
Chuck Burton/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Attorney Johnnie Cochran relaxes before speaking to students at Winston-Salem State University in Winston-Salem, N.C., Thursday, April 15, 1999. Cochran, who became a legal superstar after helping clear O.J. Simpson during a sensational murder trial in which he uttered the famous quote "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," died yesterday. He was 67.
Fact
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8A
An artist's rendering from the late 1960s shows a bird's-eye view of campus with an architect's vision for a humanities building tower. The tower was never built. Scaled-down plans resulted in Wescoe Hall as students know it today.
The main entrance to the University was at the corner of 11th and Mississippi streets with a football stadium on the right and the proposed gymnasium on the left. Then a main axial boulevard drove straight up the hill terminating at a massive administration building. A semi-circular cross avenue, Jayhawk Boulevard, would provide access to all buildings along the horseshoe shaped ridge. The existing green "hollows" were left untouched to beautify the entrance to new University buildings yet to be built.
The scope of this project was monumental. But logistically acquiring the land proposed a problem because it was segmented and owned by several different people.
Behind closed doors, friends of University officials planned to buy these disparate plots and sell them back at cost — with the exception of the largest piece of land encompassing 51.2 acres.
That piece belonged to a woman who deeded it to her nephew Frank B. Lawrence who refused to give it to the University. Lawrence proposed to let the University use an immediately adjacent 10 acres, if they paid him 6 percent on $10,000 for the remainder of his life.
Lawrence died in March of 1907, relinquishing the land to the University after the decision was made to change the design.
Later, the location for the gymnasium became centralized where Wescoe Hall sits today, and there was even a proposal to move the football stadium to the south to facilitate further growth.
And that's the truth.
Myth #3: The architect of Strong Hall committed suicide after realizing it was built backwards
Regents. the design was based off of Kessler's plan, but McArdle developed a scheme of monumental proportion.
Fact: This story has no grasp on reality, and that may explain why it is the most common myth regarding campus buildings. The truth behind this story begins shortly after Kessler's plan of 1904 was released.
The cost was estimated at $500,000, and it featured a prominent 4-story rotunda with a 60-foot diameter rotunda lighted by a large flat dome. Massive columns lined the north entrance, facing present day Memorial Stadium.
The plan called for a massive structure located at the top of the hill, which Strong envisioned as "one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the state."
St. Louis architect Montrose Pallen McArdle was asked to lecture at the University while working on the design. After a year of drawing, the design was presented to the Board of
Once this initial design was completed and presented, a massive plaster-of-paris model was constructed, and the project was handed off to the state architect Charles E. Chandler. It was at this point that design changes began to be made, where in 1909 the large north entrance was sealed down, and the entire building was moved to the north side of Jayhawk Boulevard. In 1909 the east wing was under way, and it was completed in 1911.
The structure was scaled down yet again, and in 1912, the central portion and west wing were excavated only to be put on hold for five years. It seemed as though the east wing was the extent of the building to most students unaware of the final vision.
But once the building resumed in 1917, the west wing was completed in a year, and in 1921, the plans changed again reducing the north wing to simply a grand four-way staircase.
The completed building wasn't finished until 1924, 15 years after
its inception. By that time, the original architect was no longer at the University, and the campus master plan reflected a move to the south. The north grand staircase, however, remained the main access to what was later to be named Strong Hall.
No architect ever committed suicide over the apparent "backwards" nature of the building because the south entrance only became the main entrance after 1940 when the deteriorating north staircase was removed.
Clifford S. Griffin in his book "The University of Kansas: A History" describes the resulting building in comparison to McArdle's design: "Although the building had the general form that McArdle had proposed, it lacked everything that gave proportion and beauty to the original plan: the dome, the pillars, [and] the impressive north facade."
And that's the truth.
— Ferrari is a Wilmette, Ill., senior in architecture. Edited by Laura Francoviglia.
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