Nick Reiner lost his high-powered lawyer, Alan Jackson, on Wednesday and will now be represented by a public defender. He appeared in court in a brown jail uniform and had his arraignment postponed to Feb. 23.
Nick stared at the courtroom gallery during the 30-minute hearing that included an extended meeting of the lawyers in the judge’s chambers. When the judge asked Nick if he agreed to the change in representation, he responded: “Yeah, I agree to that.” His new public defender is Kimberly Greene.
While details as to why Jackson could no longer represent Nick were not given, the lawyer said, “With Mr. Reiner’s consent, we ask to withdraw as counsel of record… We feel we have no choice but to withdraw as counsel.”
During a press conference after the hearing, Jackson said he wasn’t able to offer more explanation but that he and his team “remain deeply, deeply committed to Nick Reiner and to his best interests.”
“I had to withdraw as Nick Reiner’s counsel, circumstances beyond our control, but more importantly, circumstances beyond Nick’s control have dictated that,” Jackson said. “Sadly, it’s made it impossible for us to continue our representation of Nick. I’m legally, and I’m ethically prohibited from explaining all the reasons why I know that’s a question on everybody’s mind. We expect the public defender to step in. They’ve already been appointed and very capably protect Nick Reiner’s interests as he moves forward through the system.”
He continued: “We know that the legal process will reveal the true facts of the circumstances surrounding this case, Nick’s case. You know, a lot’s been printed of late. Over the last three weeks, a lot has been printed, printed about Nick, printed about his family, printed about the circumstances. Speculation is in print on December 15, in the early morning hours, I was in New York at the time, and I got a call. Me and my team, we dropped everything, and for the last three weeks, we have devoted literally every waking hour to protecting Nick and his interests. We’ve investigated this matter top to bottom, back to front.”
In a passionate final statement, Jackson offered a glimmer of insight into the case. “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 in California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder.”
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In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for the Reiner family said they “have the utmost trust in the legal process and will not comment further on matters related to the legal proceedings.”
Nick is accused of killing his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, in a shocking double homicide inside the family’s Los Angeles home last month.
Rob Reiner, who acted in the groundbreaking sitcom All in the Family before directing the beloved movies This is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride, was found stabbed to death along with his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, a photographer and producer, on Dec. 14, police said. LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi told the city’s police commission that the couple’s bodies were discovered in the master bedroom of their Brentwood home.
Choi said “information developed during the early stages of the investigation” caused officers to arrest Nick Reiner, 32, near a gas station in the Exposition Park area of downtown Los Angeles shortly after 9 p.m. that evening. The Medical Examiner later confirmed the couple died from “multiple sharp force injuries.” Nick was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, with prosecutors identifying the alleged murder weapon as a knife.
Los Angeles County D.A. Nathan Hochman said the felony charges included the special circumstances of multiple murders with a deadly weapon, making Nick eligible for the death penalty if tried and convicted as charged. (Any trial would require that a judge first find him competent to stand trial.)
Hochman said his office was still considering whether to seek the death penalty. Gov. Gavin Newsom currently has a moratorium on executions in California.
Hochman declined to comment on whether Nick had a history of mental illness, separate from his admitted struggles with addiction. “If there is evidence of mental illness, it will be presented in court and in whatever detail the defense seeks to do that,” he said. Sources previously confirmed to Rolling Stone that Reiner had been treated for schizophrenia. The diagnosis was first reported by TMZ.
Nick first appeared before a judge on Dec. 17, wearing a sleeveless blue suicide-prevention gown with a shackle around his waist. Jackson said then that it was too early to enter a plea, so the arraignment was postponed.
“This is a devastating tragedy that has befallen the Reiner family. We all recognize that,” Jackson said in a statement outside the courthouse after the hearing. “Our hearts go out to the entire Reiner family. There are very, very complex and serious issues that are associated with this case. They need to be thoroughly but very carefully dealt with and examined.”
Sources previously told Rolling Stone that the night before their slayings, Rob and Michele Reiner had asked if they could bring Nick as their guest to Conan O’Brien’s holiday party. At the party, Nick was exhibiting “antisocial behavior,” including staring at people, sources said.
Nick had a long and public history of battling drug addiction. He told People in 2016 that he was 15 when he first went to rehab. He said more than a dozen stints at recovery centers followed, and he experienced homelessness in Maine, New Jersey, and Texas. He later wrote a film script loosely based on his experience. It became the 2016 movie Being Charlie, directed by his dad.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Reiners said they desperately tried to help their son, but navigating his care was challenging. “The program works for some people, but it can’t work for everybody,” Reiner said. “When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen. We were desperate, and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son.”
Speaking to the Dopey podcast in 2018, Nick admitted he was an addict and described an incident where his drug use led to violent behavior. He recalled trashing his parents’ guest house after he was “sequestered” there during a bender.
“I went ten rounds with my guest house,” he told Dopey host Dave Manheim. “It’s not much of a story. I got totally spun out on uppers. I think it was coke and something else. And I was up for days on end, and I started punching out different things in my guest house. I think I started with a TV and then I went over to a lamp and then, progressively, I just, everything in the guest house got wrecked. …I literally punched the TV.”
Asked if he lacerated his hand, he said, “I don’t even remember at this point.” The incident in 2017 led to another intervention, he said, and he ended up on a plane to Boston. He recalled having a cocaine-induced heart attack during the flight.
Asked if he was trying to relieve tension when he destroyed the guest house, he said he couldn’t “remember the specifics” of what sparked the outburst. He said his actions had “no logic.”
The Reiners had three children together. On Dec. 17, their older son Jake, 34, and daughter Romy, 27, broke their silence to share their grief and thank supporters. “Words cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day. The horrific and devastating loss of our parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, is something that no one should ever experience,” the siblings said in the statement obtained by Rolling Stone. “They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends.”
The siblings expressed gratitude for the outpouring of condolences they received. “We now ask for respect and privacy, for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity, and for our parents to be remembered for the incredible lives they lived and the love they gave,” they said.
From Rolling Stone US
