Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., an attorney who repeatedly captured media attention by representing well-known clients, such as singer Michael Jackson, and undertaking highly controversial cases, grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, a town which later established "Johnnie Cochran Day" in his honor. Cochran acted as defense attorney for several infamous clients, such as Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a former leader of the Black Panthers. Unsuccessfully represented by Cochran in a 1972 trial, Pratt was sentenced to imprisonment for murder. Represented by Cochran again in 1997, however, the murder conviction was overturned, and Pratt was released after spending almost twenty-five years behind bars.

Certainly the most highly publicized of Cochran's clients was O.J. Simpson, the former football player turned actor. On June 12, 1994, O.J. Simpson's ex-wife and the mother of his children Justin and Sydney, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were brutally murdered at Nicole's home. As the result...