Nick Reiner's mental health history is emerging as a key backdrop as he faces charges of killing his parents, filmmaker Rob Reiner and activist-producer Michele Singer Reiner. Two people familiar with the matter tell the New York Times that the younger Reiner, 32, was under a court-ordered mental health conservatorship for about a year starting in 2020, a step that California reserves for those deemed unable to meet basic needs because of a serious psychiatric disorder. A court clerk confirmed the arrangement ended in 2021. Reiner's appointed conservator, fiduciary Steven Baer, called the case a "horrible tragedy" and pointed to widespread misunderstanding of mental illness; he declined to give specifics on Reiner, citing confidentiality.
People familiar with Reiner's medical history say he's been diagnosed at various times with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder and recently changed antipsychotic medications after struggling with side effects. One source says that Reiner's previous medication had worked but was switched about a month before his parents were fatally stabbed in their Los Angeles home on Dec. 14. A psychiatrist with New York City's Zucker Hillside Hospital tells People that it's "important that, when medications are being changed or tapered down, people are closely monitored, because it could be a time when potentially the individual could be more vulnerable to a symptom recurrence or worsening."
The conservatorship, known as an LPS conservatorship under California's 1967 involuntary-treatment law, allowed a conservator to make decisions about Reiner's psychiatric care for one year, per the Times. Deadline notes that this type of conservatorship differs from the one used for Britney Spears, who saw her finances and daily activities supervised. Why the conservatorship wasn't renewed is unclear; county officials are staying mum, citing patient privacy, per the Times.
Legal and psychiatric experts say Reiner's mental health will likely be central to upcoming proceedings, potentially shaping questions about his competency to stand trial and any future insanity defense—paths that are complex, lengthy, and, in the case of insanity claims, rarely successful with juries. Reiner, who has a long history of drug addiction that he's discussed publicly and dramatized in a 2016 film co-written with his father, hasn't entered a plea and is now represented by a public defender. If convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, Reiner faces life without parole or the death penalty.
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