There is some doubts whether Nick Reiner will plead insanity after being charged with m*rder in connection with the passing of his parents Rob and Michele Reiner. However, it’s a defense with a historically low success rate in court, according to legal experts.
Nick Reiner to plea insanity
“To be found not guilty by reason of insanity, that is a very difficult legal hurdle to overcome in California,” Neama Rahmani of California’s West Coast Trial Lawyers, who is not connected to the Reiner family case, told PEOPLE.
“You have to prove, between disease or defect, the defendant does not know the nature and consequences of his actions. Essentially, you have to show that the defendant doesn’t know right from wrong.”
Rob and his wife Michele were found dead in their Los Angeles home on December 14th. Their son Nick, was then arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder; he is being held without bail at Twin Towers Correctional Facility, where, a police source told PEOPLE, he was put on suicide watch in solitary confinement. His charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole or the death penalty, if convicted.
“It is very hard,” says Rahmani, for most defendants to achieve a more lenient sentencing by pleading insanity in court.
“Jurors almost always reject this defense. It only works a very small percentage of the time.”
He continued that’s partly due to where an insanity plea falls amid legal proceedings, noting that first, the prosecution must prove culpability and the defendant will “argue something” like self-defense.
In the “second phase,” he continues, “the burden’s on the defense”: lawyers will typically attempt to argue a defendant is legally insane, thus reversing the earlier narrative.
“Then they gotta turn around and say, ‘Oh, you know what? He actually did it, but he was insane.’ So jurors don’t like it, and it’s rarely, if ever, effective.”
In the case of Nick facing two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of his parents, with a special allegation of using a knife, surrounding circumstances could make a successful insanity plea “difficult,” New York criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Randy Zelin tells PEOPLE.
In a court of law, a “history of bad blood” could point to a possible motive, mitigating “not knowing that you’re engaged in criminal offense conduct,” says Zelin, who is also not affiliated with the Reiner case.
