When one of Ms. Reinemann’s first customers of the day, a regular, asked her to turn the television atop the bar to the hearing, she reluctantly obliged. But as soon as he left, she shut it off. She said she had seen enough of Mr. Simpson “flapping his gums,” as she put it, and besides, she wanted the bar to be an “O.J.-free zone,” just as it was during his murder trial.

“He just wants to be on TV,” Ms. Reinemann, 50, said before the decision was announced. “He’s got no remorse for anything he’s ever done in his life. He doesn’t understand what it is to be sorry about anything.”

Justin T. Bamberg, a 30-year-old lawyer in South Carolina, scarcely remembers the murder trial. But Mr. Bamberg, who regularly represents the families of black men killed in police shootings, said on Thursday that the case remained relevant to contemporary debates about race and policing.

“There are so many aspects, good and bad, about the criminal justice system that are evident in just that one O.J. case,” said Mr. Bamberg, a Democratic member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. “Why it does still matter is it is a perfect example of how the system itself can be undermined when the players in the system don’t follow the rules.”

Alex Morrow, 32, watched the murder trial as a child in the Bay Area. A few years later, as a football player at the University of Southern California in the early 2000s, he met Mr. Simpson at one of the team’s games.

“I don’t believe most of what he said,” said Mr. Morrow, who is now a television producer. “I thought there’s no way they’ll let this guy do anything other than spend his life in prison. He’s a criminal.”

But just as he walked in for a haircut at a barbershop, he saw news of the parole on his phone and immediately showed it to his stylist, Nick Shaffer, 26.