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The headlines came fast<\/span> and furious: Nick Reiner, 32, could face the death penalty for murdering his own parents, beloved Hollywood couple Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.<\/p>\n News coverage ranged from practical explainers<\/a> on California\u2019s death penalty to vulgar punditry casting more heat than light. True crime celebrity Nancy Grace fumed that Reiner showed \u201cno remorse\u201d during his brief courtroom appearance. Megyn Kelly mused, without shame or evidence, that Reiner might deploy the same \u201csympathy card\u201d as the Menendez brothers, who, after killing their parents, accused<\/a> their father of sexually abusing them as children.<\/p>\n If there was one thing most people seemed to agree on, however, it was that a death sentence is highly unlikely.<\/p>\n Reiner\u2019s reported mental illness<\/a> has already raised questions over his competency to stand trial. His lifelong struggle with addiction, which led to homelessness and more than a dozen stints in rehab, is the kind of mitigating evidence that could persuade a jury to show mercy \u2014 if not convince prosecutors to take death off the table altogether.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the Reiner family, which has barely begun to grieve. The Reiners\u2019 adult children \u2014 who have asked<\/a> \u201cfor speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity\u201d \u2014 may likely push back against a decision to seek death, whether out of opposition to the death penalty, a desire to avoid the trauma and spectacle of a capital trial, or because they do not wish to lose another beloved family member to homicide, no matter how devastating his alleged actions.<\/p>\n So why did the Los Angeles County district attorney raise the possibility of a death sentence for Nick Reiner at a press conference just two days after his parents\u2019 bodies were found?<\/p>\n In a state that has not carried out an execution<\/a> in 20 years, decisions to seek the death penalty amount to little more than political posturing. While nearly 600 people remain under a death sentence in the Golden State, a return to executions has never seemed more far-fetched. After Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium<\/a> in 2019, the death chamber at San Quentin was dismantled, and the condemned population transferred to prisons across the state.<\/p>\n While a new governor could conceivably lift the moratorium, any push to restart executions would take years. As one federal judge put it more than a decade ago<\/a>, California\u2019s death penalty remains a punishment \u201cno rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Yet there was District Attorney Nathan Hochman on December 16, standing somberly before the cameras in downtown LA to announce the charges that would make Reiner eligible for the ultimate punishment.<\/p>\n \u201cNo decision at this point has been made with respect to the death penalty,\u201d Hochman added gravely, cautioning against speculation or rumor.<\/p>\n His decision would rely on the evidence and, at least in part, on input from the family of the victims.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cWe owe it to their memory to pursue justice and accountability for the lives that were taken.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is not overly speculative to say that Rob and Michele Reiner would have recoiled at the thought of the state seeking a death sentence in their name \u2014 let alone against their own son.<\/p>\n Their famed support of social justice causes included advocating for people in prison. Friends of Singer Reiner have recalled<\/a> her recent focus on wrongful convictions and her regular conversations with Nanon Williams, a Texas man who faced the death penalty as a teenager before his sentence was reduced to life. One of Rob Reiner\u2019s last production credits, \u201cLyrics From Lockdown,\u201d a one-man show<\/a> by the formerly incarcerated artist Bryonn Bain, centers in part on Williams\u2019s story.<\/p>\n In a 2023 interview<\/a> discussing the show, Reiner pointed to the racism at the heart of the criminal justice system, a topic he\u2019d grappled with in his film \u201cGhosts of Mississippi.\u201d He had brainstormed a potential documentary series, \u201cInjustice for All,\u201d he said, which would depict the ugly reality of the system: \u201cIt\u2019s prosecutorial misconduct. It\u2019s profiling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe death penalty does not make us safer, it is racist, it\u2019s morally untenable, it\u2019s irreversible and expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n It was this very kind of systemic critique<\/a> \u2014 rooted in decades of research and data \u2014 that had led former LA District Attorney George Gasc\u00f3n to halt death penalty prosecutions<\/a> in Reiner\u2019s home county a few years earlier. At a time when the death penalty had been on a long, slow decline, Los Angeles remained an outlier<\/a> in sending people to death row \u2014 overwhelmingly people of color.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is the death penalty does not make us safer, it is racist, it\u2019s morally untenable, it\u2019s irreversible and expensive, and, beginning today, it\u2019s off the table in LA County,\u201d Gasc\u00f3n said<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n But electoral politics are quick to punish such attempts at reform \u2014 especially when they coincide with any uptick in crime<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s tenure overlapped with a rise in violent crime nationwide, a phenomenon tied to the pandemic but swiftly blamed<\/a> on reform-minded prosecutors<\/a>. While Gasc\u00f3n survived two recall attempts, the era of reform he sought to implement was short-lived. A crowded field of challengers lined up to replace him in 2024.<\/p>\n Hochman would win out by running a classic tough-on-crime campaign. Promising to rescue the city from a descent into crime-ridden dystopia, he vowed to revive the death penalty in LA as part of his \u201cblueprint for justice<\/a>,\u201d a set of priorities primarily aimed at reversing his predecessor\u2019s reforms. Never mind that the death penalty remained a failed public policy that did nothing to stop crime \u2014 and which California taxpayers had paid billions of dollars<\/a> to maintain with little to show for it.<\/p>\n \u201cEffective immediately,\u201d Hochman declared<\/a> months after taking office, \u201cthe prior administration\u2019s extreme and categorical policy forbidding prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in any case is rescinded.\u201d<\/p>\n It is against this backdrop that Hochman will now handle the prosecution of Nick Reiner.<\/p>\n Just two weeks before the Reiners\u2019 horrific murders, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California released a report assessing Hochman\u2019s first year<\/a> in office, decrying his \u201cpattern of extreme and debunked approaches to crime.\u201d At the top of the list was his decision to bring back the death penalty to LA County.<\/p>\n The report quoted a recent op-ed<\/a> by veteran anti-death penalty activist and actor Mike Farrell<\/a>, the board president of the California-based abolitionist group Death Penalty Focus.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s incomprehensible that D.A. Hochman is once again pursuing the death penalty in Los Angeles, the county that has sent more people to California\u2019s now-defunct death row than any other in the state,\u201d Farrell wrote. Although Hochman often pointed to a pair of unsuccessful ballot initiatives that twice failed<\/a> to repeal California\u2019s death penalty, Angelenos voted in favor of the measures.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would a responsible district attorney ignore the demonstrated will of the voters in the county he serves?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cSo why,\u201d Farrell asked, \u201cwould a responsible district attorney ignore the demonstrated will of the voters in the county he serves?\u201d<\/p>\n Farrell also called out Hochman for refusing to meet with victims\u2019 family members who oppose capital punishment. Although Hochman vowed to give families a voice in matters of crime and punishment, his conduct has left some families feeling betrayed.<\/p>\n Perhaps no family has been more vocal than the relatives of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who filed multiple<\/a> complaints<\/a> against Hochman for his conduct while he fought to block the brothers\u2019 recent bid for release. Prior to Hochman\u2019s election, the Menendez case had been reviewed by Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s Resentencing Unit, ultimately persuading the DA to recommend<\/a> that the brothers be resentenced after 35 years behind bars.<\/p>\n Hochman swiftly intervened, taking aggressive steps to keep the brothers in prison. In one subsequent letter<\/a>, sent to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Civil Rights Division, a family member described a meeting between Hochman and more than 20 relatives, who urged the DA to reconsider his stance.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a tear-filled meeting, numerous family members shared the ongoing trauma and suffering we have endured for more than 30 years,\u201d it read. \u201cInstead of responding with compassion, acknowledgment, and support, DA Hochman proceeded to verbally and emotionally retraumatize the family by shaming us for allegedly not listening to his public press briefings.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\nReiners\u2019 Activism<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Victims\u2019<\/strong> Families?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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