Angelenos Reflect on a ‘Big Moment in American History’

In Los Angeles, where the murder trial of O.J. Simpson was a defining part of a turbulent era, news of his death rippled through families and friend groups Thursday as a collection of vivid images or half-forgotten personal connections.

What year, they wondered, was the trial, again? What was the thing with the glove? Do you remember that restaurant where Ronald Goldman worked?

But in 1994, just about no one in Los Angeles — or the world — was unaware of the details around the celebrity who had been accused of violently killing his then-35-year-old ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Goldman, 25. The case was larger than life in a moment that had come to seem riddled with larger-than-life events.

In that respect, the Los Angeles of 1994 foreshadowed the 21st century that was just a few years from dawning. Freeways were still flattened from the disastrous Northridge earthquake. Los Angeles was still reeling and raw from the 1992 riots. Immigration had surged, throwing a spotlight on disparities of wealth and privilege. And the rise of cable television was starting to magnify every nuance on a 24-hour news feed.

It was against this backdrop that authorities who had once pestered Simpson for autographs now accused him of murder, and that his lawyers decided his best defense was to convince jurors that anything could have happened.

“It was such a big moment in American history,” recalled Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor who became an early legal celebrity doing televised commentary on Simpson’s trial. “And it had an enormous impact.”