Nick Reiner could possibly enter a plea today in his third court appearance over the grisly murders of his parents. The 32-year-old son of legendary director Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Reiner is due back in court at 8am Pacific Time for his arraignment hearing. He has been locked up inside the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, California, after his parents were found stabbed to death inside their $13.5 million Brentwood home on December 14. He was arrested and held without bail hours after their bodies were found and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the days that followed.
Attorney May Raise Insanity Defense Strategy, Legal Expert Says
The appearance could last all of a few minutes if he enters a plea, but his public defender could potentially use the time to start building an insanity defense. Nick has long dealt with mental health issues, as it was previously claimed that he had been placed in a mental health conservatorship five years before allegedly murdering his parents. He also switched his schizophrenia medication about a month before his parents were found dead by his sister, Romy. Because of this, his lawyer, Kimberly Greene, could possibly point toward his mental instability, a Los Angeles-based legal expert told the New York Post.
'One reason to roll out a mental defense now is that, by waiting, it can undermine the credibility of an argument later, causing people to ask, "If he's so bad off mentally, why didn't you raise the issue earlier?"' lawyer Royal Oakes told the outlet. Oakes said Nick's legal team might even state that he cannot understand the court proceedings in his case. 'They can play the competency card. That can stop the case cold and trigger psychiatric evaluations,' Oakes added. Despite the arraignment happening in just a few hours, Greene could very well have Nick plead not guilty and use the potential mental health strategy later on, the attorney suggested.
Oakes said: 'They can play the competency card. That can stop the case cold and trigger psychiatric evaluations.' Nick's plea has been postponed twice since the murder case began. He originally hired hotshot lawyer Alan Jackson , who represented Karen Read and Harvey Weinstein, to defend him. But just weeks later, Jackson sensationally removed himself from Nick's case. At a press conference following a January court hearing, Jackson said: 'Circumstances beyond our control ... and beyond Nick's control have dictated that, sadly, it has made it impossible for us to continue our representation of Nick.'
Conan O'Brien Breaks Silence
Nick's latest court appearance comes just days after comedian Conan O'Brien broke his silence on his parents' deaths. Just hours before Rob and Michele were found, the filmmaker was seen clashing with Nick at O’Brien’s holiday party. ‘It’s just so awful,’ O’Brien, 62, said in an interview with The New Yorker on Friday. ‘I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them,’ he said, adding that he and his wife, Liza Powel O’Brien, ‘were seeing them a lot.’ ‘They were just such lovely people. 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.
‘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,’ O’Brien added. It was reported that all three Reiners attended O’Brien’s December 13 holiday party, where the filmmaker and his son were involved in a ‘very loud argument.’ It was also recently revealed that Nick has been acting ‘almost childlike’ in jail and that he is ‘not competent to stand trial right now.’ TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin told Fox & Friends last week: ‘He is almost childlike in jail, we’re told.
‘He can’t process the consequences of what he’s done. He knows what he did. ‘He just can’t understand where he is right now,’ Levin added. Levin said that the killings were ‘incredibly brutal’. ‘We know people in the medical examiner’s office who are traumatized just by the pictures,’ he said. The TMZ producer added that the killings had ‘all the markings of a meth murder’ and that Nick had been using the hard drug at the time.