"People didn't know anything," Giggans said. "It gave our movement an opportunity to be persistent and consistent in providing the education that we were struggling to provide ... and for people to understand that no one deserves to be battered or abused or raped and that this is a serious social ill."

Even then, there was a gap between what the public was learning and what the jury was allowed to hear.

Six months after Simpson was acquitted, California added Section 1109 to the Evidence Code, allowing uncharged conduct and other evidence of prior abuse to be shown to jurors in similar cases.

The trial also shined a spotlight on DNA evidence, then a scientifically established but publicly suspect technology.

"It was like mumbo-jumbo to the public at that point," Pincus said.

Today, DNA evidence is critical to many domestic violence prosecutions because it gets around the reliance upon "he-said, she-said" narratives that long hampered battery cases.

Without DNA, "it came down to who jurors believed: the hysterical victim who jumped all over the place telling her story or refused to testify out of fear, and the abuser who was calm and seen as a nice guy," Pincus said.

With evidence handling under a microscope, advocates were able to push for reforms in how the LAPD managed rape kits, eventually leading to the creation of a new DNA crime lab.

"The case really did spearhead legislation that started expanding resources," said Carmen McDonald, executive director of the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice.

Still, some say the changes are more surface-level than substantive.

"These wonderful changes that were supposedly wrought by the mistakes made during that trial are not anything that I've benefited from, and they're not anything any woman I know has benefited from," said Gurba, the author and survivor. "If it's prosecuted, most domestic violence is prosecuted as a misdemeanor. So the state sees our torture as a petty nuisance."

Now, she and other advocates fear gains made since the trial could soon be erased.

'All that we built since O.J. can go away'

California is poised to lose tens of millions in funding for domestic violence programs this year, a 43% cut that threatens critical infrastructure including emergency shelter, medical care and legal assistance to survivors, according to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.

Programs for at-risk populations already are stretched thin under the existing budget, survivors and advocates say.

"When I tried to enter a shelter when I was escaping domestic violence, I couldn't get into one because they were all full," Gurba said.

Now, those already overburdened services could disappear.

"It's about to fall apart," Giggans said. "All that we built since O.J. can go away."

Advocates fear the cuts could create a cascade effect across the state.

"Domestic violence impacts every single community and population; it's across every field," McDonald said. "It's immigration, it's schools. The loss of funding impacts [other] services that are out there for folks who need help."

For example, data show domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness. According to a survey released last summer by the Urban Institute, nearly half of all unhoused women in Los Angeles have experienced domestic violence, and about a quarter fled their last residence because of it.

For Gurba, the looming cuts are yet more evidence of how little has truly changed since the 1994 slayings.

"I don't think there was a revolution in how domestic violence survivors are treated thanks to that murder — that's a myth," she said. "The rhetoric may have changed, but the treatment is still the same behind closed doors."

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