LOS ANGELES — Nick Reiner will not face the death penalty if convicted in the killings of his mother and father, the acclaimed filmmaker Rob Reiner, the Los Angeles County district attorney said Tuesday.
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District Attorney Nathan Hochman made the announcement ahead of a pretrial hearing in the younger Reiner’s case. Reiner, 33, is accused of stabbing his parents to death at their Los Angeles home late last year.
Nick Reiner has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder with special circumstances, including lying in wait.
Hochman said at a news conference Tuesday that prosecutors went through a “rigorous review” and spoke to Nick Reiner’s siblings before making their death penalty decision.
The younger Reiner could be volatile and struggled for years with drug addiction, despite his parents’ repeated efforts to get him treatment, people who knew the family have said. They recalled him lashing out angrily at gatherings and arguing with his father at a holiday party shortly before the killings of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner on Dec. 14.
If convicted, Nick Reiner will face a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Reiner is being held without bail, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case.
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A grand jury returned the indictment against Reiner on July 20, but it was not unsealed until mid-August. Hochman said Nick Reiner’s siblings expressed a “strong desire” for the transcript to stay sealed because making it public would add to their trauma.
Prosecutors do not believe that unsealing the transcript would interfere with the defendant’s right to a fair trial, Hochman said, but they defer to the court on whether to release it.
He said he does not anticipate a trial before 2027.
In a separate court case, Reiner is fighting to use his trust fund to pay for his defense. In a petition filed in probate court, an attorney for Reiner said he is entitled to the money and innocent until proven guilty.
But a steward of the trust fund has opposed the request, arguing it would violate California’s “slayer statute” that prevents people from inheriting the money of someone they kill.
Reiner “has no other means — to pay for his legal expenses, or for his basic support needs while incarcerated” if he cannot access his trust fund, one of his lawyers said in the probate court petition.
Reiner’s remaining family arranged early on for him to be represented by the prominent defense attorney Alan Jackson, but Jackson soon withdrew after learning that “anticipated funding from [Reiner’s] siblings would not be provided,” according to the petition.
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The next hearing in the legal fight over the trust fund is set for Oct. 23.
