Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.
His new attorney, public defender Kimberly Greene, entered the plea during arraignment in the case on Monday morning, while Reiner was behind glass in the Los Angeles courtroom.
Reiner was standing in an enclosed custody area and wore brown jail clothes, rather than a suicide prevention smock like he wore during an appearance in December, the Associated Press reported.
A judge had postponed the legal proceedings last month after his last attorney withdrew from the case and was replaced by a public defender. Reiner’s former attorney, Alan Jackson, said at the time that he could not share why he was stepping down, but that his client was not guilty.
The 32-year-old Nick Reiner has been incarcerated since December after he was arrested for allegedly stabbing his parents. The bodies of the acclaimed director and actor, 78, and Michele, 70, a photographer, were found in their Los Angeles home by their daughter on 14 December, and police took Reiner into custody that evening.
He was charged with first-degree murder, with a special circumstance of multiple murders, and a special allegation for the use of a dangerous weapon, and is being held without bail. They died from “multiple sharp force injuries”, according to the LA county medical examiner.
The district attorney’s office is still awaiting a full autopsy report for the couple, Habib Balian, the deputy district attorney on the case, told the judge on Monday.
Nathan Hochman, the Los Angeles district attorney, told reporters after the arraignment that the case is eligible for the death penalty but that his office has not yet made a decision on the matter.
“We will be looking at all aggravating and mitigating circumstances,” he said.
The killings of the beloved couple, who were also well known for their political activism, left the entertainment industry reeling. The case has drawn extensive media coverage, including of Reiner’s personal struggles and the days and weeks leading up to the incident.
Reiner had a long history of struggles with addiction and mental illness, and collaborated with his father on the film Being Charlie, which was reportedly loosely inspired by his own experiences. He was under a conservatorship for a year in 2020 because of his mental health issues, the New York Times reported.
Before the killings, he had reportedly been prescribed medication used to treat schizophrenia, according to the Los Angeles Times.
His behavior was said to have become increasingly erratic before the killings, according to media reports. The night before the Reiners’ bodies were found, the couple attended a Christmas party at the comedian Conan O’Brien’s home where Rob and Nick Reiner were heard arguing.
O’Brien spoke about the killings in an interview with the New Yorker on Friday, describing the couple as “lovely people” and saying he and his wife had grown close to Rob and Michele and saw them often.
“And to have that experience of saying goodnight to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone … I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there’s no other word for it. It’s just very – it’s so awful. It’s just so awful,” O’Brien said.
“And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there – and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”
Before stepping down, Nick Reiner’s former attorney, Jackson, had urged the public not to rush to judgment in the case. Circumstances beyond his control had made it “impossible to continue our representation of Nick”, Jackson said last month.
He told reporters: “What we’ve learned, and you can take this to the bank, is that pursuant to the laws of this state, pursuant to the law of California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder. Print that.”
Reiner is expected to next appear in court on 29 April.
