The Los Angeles County district attorney said on Tuesday that his office would not seek the death penalty in the double murder case against Nick Reiner, who is accused of killing his parents, the Hollywood director Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.
In a news conference ahead of a hearing in the case, Nathan J. Hochman, the district attorney, said the decision was made after “a rigorous review, where we look at the aggravating factors as well as the mitigating factors.”
If Mr. Reiner is convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. No trial date has been set.
Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found dead inside their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles in December. A grand jury indicted Nick Reiner on two counts of first-degree murder, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Reiner has been charged with murder under special circumstances — including the fact that there were multiple killings — which meant prosecutors could seek the death penalty. Other special circumstances included in the indictment were the allegations that he committed the murders “by means of lying in wait” and with a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife.
A public defender representing Mr. Reiner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Reiner has been trying to gain access to a $1.6 million family trust fund so he can hire a private lawyer, but he has faced opposition from a financial steward who cited California’s “slayer statute.” The statute blocks people from inheriting money from someone they “feloniously and intentionally” kill.
Mr. Reiner, 33, has a history of serious mental illness and drug addiction. He has been diagnosed at different times with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, according to people familiar with the situation, and was placed into a yearlong mental health conservatorship in 2020. One of those people told The New York Times that Mr. Reiner had been struggling in the weeks before his arrest with a change in his medication.
Few details have been shared publicly about what the authorities believe led to the killings and what Mr. Reiner’s motive could have been. A judge has issued a protective order, barring prosecutors or defense lawyers from releasing any discovery materials.
Mr. Reiner’s siblings, Jake and Romy, were both listed on the witness list for grand jury proceedings in July. In an interview with ABC that was broadcast last month, Jake Reiner recalled the discovery of his parents’s killings on Dec. 14, 2025, when his sister called him in distress.
“Romy told me our dad was dead,” he said in the interview, “and then she said, ‘I can’t find mom.’”
He declined to say whether he was surprised when he learned that his brother was considered the prime suspect.
“I’ll never understand,” he said. “I don’t care how it’s explained to me, I don’t care what facts come out. I will never understand why this happened.”
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