Nick Reiner, the youngest son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, pleaded not guilty on Monday in the murder of his parents, more than two months after they were discovered stabbed to death inside their Los Angeles home.
With the plea, lawyers for Nick Reiner dealt with what was essentially a legal formality and moved further discussion of their client’s defence into the future. It is not uncommon for lawyers to enter a not guilty plea initially, only to modify it later. The entire proceeding on Monday took only minutes.
Reiner was charged in December with two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents, who were found in their home in the Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles.
The counts carry what are known as “special circumstances” that could add time to a sentence if Reiner is convicted. He faces the possibility of life in prison without a chance at parole or the death penalty, although prosecutors have not said whether they would seek the latter.
READ MORE
After Reiner’s arrest on December 14th, Alan Jackson, a prominent criminal defence lawyer, was hired to represent him. But after conferring with the judge in her chambers at a hearing in January, Jackson removed himself from the case with little explanation.
The judge, Theresa McGonigle, then assigned the case to Kimberly Greene, a lawyer in the Los Angeles County public defender’s office.
Prosecutors and the police have so far provided few details about what they believe led to the murders and what a motive might be. The judge has issued a protective order, barring prosecutors or defence lawyers from publicly releasing any discovery materials.
The New York Times has reported that Reiner has a serious mental illness. He has been diagnosed at different times with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, and was placed into a year-long mental health conservatorship in 2020, underscoring the severity of the mental health challenges he faced in recent years, according to people familiar with the situation. One of those people told the Times that Reiner had been struggling in the weeks before his arrest with a change in his medication.
[ Nick Reiner’s struggles with drugs and homelessness left his parents ‘desperate’Opens in new window ]
In announcing the murder charges last year, Nathan J Hochman, the Los Angeles County district attorney, told reporters that the case would be particularly difficult to prosecute because of the intimacy between the victims and the accused.
“These cases, involving family members, are some of the most challenging and most heart-wrenching cases that our office faces,” Hochman said at the time.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
