I heard from John Handel that the name-change becomes official today: Mount Vernon Middle School has been renamed after Johnnie Cochran. From the January 24t, 2006, press release:
The Los Angeles Board of Education today voted unanimously to approve a motion to change the name of Mount Vernon Middle School in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Middle School in honor of the late Los Angeles civil rights attorney and community activist.Cochran, who attended Mount Vernon Junior High School in the 1950s, died last year following a lengthy illness. He was known worldwide for his celebrity status and celebrity clients including singer Michael Jackson and former football legend O.J. Simpson, and for his pursuit of justice for behalf of every day men and women who often gave up hope of receiving justice from the legal system.
More like Johnnie Cochran forced society to give up hope of convicting guilty black celebrities of their heinous crimes.
Cochran is the best they can come up with?! Do they have nothing better to do than come up with new names for Schools?! I cannot stand the LAUSD and the people that run it and will pay ungodly amounts of money to keep my kids out of that system.
Maybe its to inspire youth minorities that they too can get away with murder.
Oh its Bill Handel too.
Johnny Cochran was much more than just O.J.'s defense lawyer..and what would you have had? Should OJ have simply have no defense at all?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cochran
What, you expect this sanctified, borderline racist hack to actually do some research before reaching his conclusions?
He has God and Hugh Hewitt on his side - that should be enough for any one.
And no, teh negros don't deserve a defense. Especially when we dare lay our gloved hands on a white woman.
:)
Manish: My main objection isn't that he defended guilty people, but that he used morally questionably methods. See, for instance, the Chewbacca defense which was based on Cochran's style.