Chris Darden entered a not guilty plea on the behalf of Eric Holder, who has been charged with the murder of Nipsey Hussle.
After Eric Holder was arrested and charged with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder and one charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm, his attorney, Chris Darden, 62, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. If his name sounds familiar, that’s because Darden was on the prosecution for the OJ Simpson case in 1994-1995. Here’s what you should know about him.
1. He started working as a prosecutor at the Criminal Courts Building in Downtown Los Angeles in 1983. It was here that Holder eventually met Johnny Cochran, who would eventually represent Simpson during his murder trial.
2. Since his resignation that immediately followed the Simpson trial, Darden went on to teach. In addition to teaching undergraduate criminal law at California State University, Los Angeles, he went on to become an Associate Law Professor at Southwestern University School of Law.
3. He’s also an accomplished author. After writing In Contempt, which touched upon his experiences in the Simpson trial, he also co-authored crime novels The Trials of Nikki Hill, LA Justice and The Last Defense with Dick Lochte.
4. He claimed that Cochran manipulated the glove during the trial. “I think Johnnie tore the lining,” Darden said during a panel discussion at Pace Law School in 2012. “There were some additional tears in the lining so that O.J.’s fingers couldn’t go all the way up into the glove.”
5. Darden said the Simpson trial didn’t just affect his own career — he would later be fired LA County DA’s office — it hit home for him as well. “It was a very dangerous time for me,” Darden said about the trial in an interview with NBC News. “It was not uncommon to have a police car parked on the street at my parents’ home. We were under constant surveillance. People we knew and our family were constantly under surveillance and being harassed. Not just by paparazzi and the tabloids but by people who were against the prosecution.”
