The history of American law is filled with interesting and often quirky stories. Courts have heard cases about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable (the Supreme Court ruled it was a vegetable), about the legal status of baseball, and about chickens scared by low-flying military planes. The list could go on.
Some of those strange cases are funny; others are tragic. A case unfolding in California is surely one of the latter.
It involves Nick Reiner, who allegedly murdered his father, Rob Reiner, and his mother, Michelle Singer Reiner. On July 20, he was indicted for that crime by a Los Angeles grand jury. The indictment was unsealed on August 12.
He was also charged with lying in wait before killing them, a charge that makes Reiner eligible for the death penalty under California law. He pleaded not guilty on the day the indictment was made public.
Two parents allegedly murdered by their son surely qualify as a family tragedy. And there is no doubt Nick Reiner, now 32, has led a troubled life.
He has battled drug addiction for years, been in and out of rehab programs, and lived on the streets. And, as the New York Times notes, “At different times, he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder and was placed into a yearlong mental health conservatorship in 2020.”
But, as his case works its way through the criminal courts, it also has a truly peculiar wrinkle. Reiner is asking the courts to release money his parents put into trust for him so he can pay for first-class legal representation.
That’s right. Reiner may have killed his parents, and now he wants them to fund his defense.
No way. Such a plan not only defies common sense but is incompatible with the basic principles of American law.
To recap the crime, “Rob Reiner, a director, actor and Hollywood luminary, and his wife, a photographer and producer,” the AP reports, ”were stabbed to death in their home in the upscale Brentwood section of Los Angeles on Dec. 14. Nick Reiner was arrested within hours and charged two days later.”
Their killing was brutal and seemingly premeditated, although precisely what motivated it is not known.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman calls the crime “a profound betrayal by someone who was loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing.”
On June 8, Reiner filed a petition with a civil court in Los Angeles claiming that “trustees overseeing the fund, worth more than $1.5 million, have denied him without legal justification and will not share its exact value.” Newsweek reports that the petition says that “Reiner’s parents had established individual trusts for Nick Reiner and his siblings. Under the terms of Nick Reiner’s trust, established in 1993, half of the funds should be released to him when he turned 30 and the rest at 35.”
“In the filing,” Newsweek notes, “Nick Reiner’s attorneys called the terms ‘unambiguous instructions.’”
Reiner wants access to the money in the trust his parents created for him “for (1) his legal expenses; and (2) funding his commissary account so that he can buy basic support items while incarcerated (e.g., socks and personal hygiene items like soap) within the low spending limits imposed by the jail.”
At present, he is being represented in the criminal case by a public defender. Reiner wants to replace them and retain Alan Jackson, a well-known and highly regarded defense lawyer who had agreed to represent Nick Reiner, but Jackson withdrew from the case when Reiner’s brother and sister refused to continue paying him.
Reiner’s petition says that Jackson’s firm had “’performed substantial work in the initial phase,” of the criminal case and argues that “’their familiarity with the matter would enable them to resume representation efficiently and effectively.’”
Jackson also submitted a declaration stating that his “firm stands ready, willing, and able to resume representation of Mr. Reiner” should he have the funds to pay his fee.
“Given the present circumstances,” Reiner told the court, “it is an abuse of the Trustee’s discretion to refuse those requests. Nick is currently awaiting trial on double homicide charges. No use of his funds could be more important.”
Reiner claims that the trustee of the fund established by his parents is required to make the payment he should have received when he turned 30 and “requests an order compelling the trustee to ‘replenish Nick’s commissary account and to report the dates and amounts of all deposits to Nick’s counsel.’”
He alleges that the trustee will not make the distribution intended when he turned 30 “until….(he) meets with (Reiner) directly to make a subjective assessment as to ‘whether Nick presently has the capacity to ‘exercise consistently good judgment’” about the management of the trust. Reiner wants the court to declare that distributions of funds from the trust “’are mandatory’ and the trustee “’has no authority to withhold them based on concerns about Nick’s competence.’”
Moreover, his petition argues that consideration of his claim should not be clouded by the fact that Reiner is charged with killing the people who created and funded the trust for him. “Nick loved his parents and he is devastated by their deaths. But the facts about what did and did not happen to them are not at issue in this Trust litigation.”
Actually, they are.
California probate law makes that clear. It contains a provision commonly referred to as a “Slayer Statute.”
That statute says that “A person who feloniously and intentionally kills the decedent is not entitled to any ”property, interest, or benefit under a will of the decedent, or a trust created by or for the benefit of the decedent or in which the decedent has an interest, including any general or special power of appointment conferred by the will or trust on the killer and any nomination of the killer as executor, trustee, guardian, or conservator or custodian made by the will or trust.”
Reiner will claim that because he has not yet been convicted of any crime, the Slayer Statute cannot be applied to him.
Wrong again.
The statute can be applied to cases prior to a criminal conviction if the probate court determines that a beneficiary qualifies as a slayer. To do so, it only needs to use the standard of proof for civil cases, not the criminal law’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard.
Reiner is not the person who has tried to derive benefits from someone whose life they took and to seek a court’s approval for doing so. The most famous such case, Riggs v Palmer, was decided in 1889.
In that case, Elmer Palmer, who was to be the beneficiary of his grandfather’s estate feared that he was going to change his will and leave all his money to his new wife. Before he could do so, Elmer murdered him.
And, unlike California’s Slayer Statute, there was nothing in the written law that would prevent him from inheriting. Palmer argued “that the testator is dead; that his will was made in due form and has been admitted to probate, and that, therefore, it must have effect according to the letter of the law.”
The Court of Appeals of New York was not convinced.
As it explained, “It is quite true that statutes regulating the making, proof and effect of wills, and the devolution of property, if literally construed, and if they’re forced in effect can in no way and under no circumstances be controlled or modified, give this property to the murderer.”
But the court didn’t stop there. It insisted that “all laws as well as all contracts may be controlled in their operation and effect by general, fundamental maxims of the common law….These maxims are dictated by public policy, have their foundation in universal law administered in all civilized countries, and have nowhere been superseded by statutes.”
One of those maxims, the court said, was that no one should be permitted to profit from his own wrongdoing,
Elmer did not get his money. And neither should Nick Reiner.
Austin D. Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. He is an internationally renowned scholar whose interdisciplinary work examines law in relation to culture, violence, and the liberal arts. His academic foundation includes a B.A. from Providence College (1969), an M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1973) from the University of Wisconsin, and a J.D. from Yale Law School (1988). He has also received honorary degrees, including an LL.D. from Providence College (2008) and an A.M. from Amherst College (1984). Sarat has also been awarded the Jeffrey B. Ferguson Memorial Teaching Prize at Amherst in 2022 and the Ronald Pipkin Service Award as well as many others
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