Nick Reiner: Is the Defense Already Building an Insanity Case?

0:00This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Dree. Let's move over to the Reiners, four and a half months after Robin, Michelle Reiner, were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood Home and autopsy report on how they died still ain't finished. The case against their son, Nick, has now been pushed to September and it's not a trial, it's not even the preliminary hearing yet. It's a date to potentially set the preliminary hearing. We're getting like close to a year anniversary where we'll get to the preliminary hearing. The defense says it needs more discovery. The prosecution says it's wetting on the medical examiner, both sides agreed to the delay because you don't have the information, you don't have the information, and Nick Ryder, the man facing two counts of first degree murder with death penalty eligibility sat in court, consulted by his public defender and said one word, yeah.

1:02So what is actually happening behind the scenes in this case, and what does the pace of this thing tell us about what both sides are building towards, joining me to discuss as always. Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent Chief of the Counter Intelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, and former prosecutor and defense attorney, Eric Fattis, Eric, if you were Jake or Roman Reiner right now, you lost both parents, devile, and it's the person accused is your own brother, and the court just told you, come back in September, five months from now for a hearing that isn't even a real hearing. This has got to be very, you know, devastating emotionally to the family because from the outside, it looks like nobody's in a hurry to get justice for Rob and Michelle. And I have to imagine that people who love them are watching this timeline and somewhat losing their minds. But that's the emotional side. Emotional side and legal side are two very different things and require very different framework to operate. But a year in for the preliminary hearing, I mean, is this crazy?

2:05Is this normal giving your thoughts? I'm not sure I've ever seen such a delay just to get to the preliminary hearing stage. That's like the second step in a case like, among like dozens of steps. So, you know, we're not even there yet. This is a nightmare for these folks that won't end and, you know, in terms of what's going on. It's a bit of a head scratcher. Some of these can't take some time. I have seen them take about this amount of time or so. But especially if this was like a very violent death, like a clear having or shooting or whatever. Like usually those conclusions can be drawn rather quickly. The op-top, the medical examiner can amend their report later if there if need be. But yeah, delay, delay, delay, which might in or to the benefit of the defense. Sure. I mean, I'm not, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, I get you want to cross for T and dot your eye.

3:05I know that this is going to be a case. It's going to be under a microscope. So you really want to be sure you got everything and you can present it. But the method of death isn't really like even up for question here. It's like, we know he did it. It's more so why he did it and was he in a state of mind where he could be held legally responsible for understanding he was causing the death of someone at that moment? Are those answers to be found in the physical reflection of an autopsy? No, no, no. In fact, most medical examiners expressly opine that, hey, not only can I, I not conclude who did this, but I can't conclude what was going on in their heads that that's outside the purview of their expertise they, that they can't talk about that. And also Tony, with the preliminary hearing coming up, even if there are potential mental health defenses, those are rarely even consider at a preliminary hearing.

4:07And when they are, the judges usually says, hey, my job is to decide if there's probable cause for these charges. There might be defenses. There might be things that that that side can raise at trial. But the scope of preliminary hearing is rather narrow. Is there proper cause? We don't need a full mental health evaluation and all these mental health experts. I doubt they'd even be allowed to testify at the preliminary hearing. So what are we waiting for? Yeah. So I'm curious about this one, Eric, I'm going to, I'm going to flip from the legal side to the, maybe a pragmatic side on the human behavior side. Do you think, since you said it, well, if it's going to benefit anyone, it's going to benefit defense on this to keep delaying this out? Do you think there, because we keep hearing all the issues that we're having with Nick behind bars, and I mean, we're seeing it, he has let go of his victim mentality. He still looks like a super nutter, all these things. Do you think defense might be delaying a bit to try all day, Ken, to try to regulate those meds he's on, so they can actually potentially, since they know it's going to

5:10go to trial unless they plead out, which is another question I have, if you think he's going to do that. But do you think they're trying to make him a more compelling individual by delaying more to try to get those meds regulated out in the more time they have the greater chance they have at it? Or is that just, am I just doing too much thought experiment? No, no, no, that very well could be a part of it along those lines too. There might be some competency issues. And sometimes those are not made public. Sometimes there are private hearings and meetings and chambers with judges about very sensitive private matters like that. I'm wondering if there might be some ongoing competency issue, because for this guy to be competent in face trial, he has to have an awareness of the charges, and he has to be able to materially aid in his own defense. And perhaps defense is saying, hey, we've met the look of this guy and he's screwed. We're not there yet, but we're not ready to raise competency just yet. Judge, why don't you give us a little more time to work on the meds, to work on the psychological

6:12piece of this and try to get this in a place where it can be tried. It's at least possible that those conversations are being had and the public is unaware of. Is that a reason why also the prosecution might go along and agree to delay too, because they want to make sure there's no chance there's less chance for appeals after that? I think that that could be a part of it if there was, if there was potential competency issues, prosecution doesn't want to convict somebody when there is a questionist whether they're competent and have that conviction come back. So maybe prosecution's like, hey, defense is working with this guy. They've got a meds regimen and they've got counselors who I'm sure he's seeing. And so we'll let them kind of do their thing to ensure that we can secure a conviction and let it, it remains final at the appellate stage. My guess is we figured it out. Well, I mean, give me some, yeah, I mean, give me some insight here on how the sausage is made. I mean, if this is a red herring to the public and we're like, this is the cover story.

7:12This is what we're telling the public right now. Why not just say there's competency issues right now and we're going to, we need some time to get there. We've seen it in daybell. We've seen it in the gazillion cases where it's not like, oh, they're kind of out of it right now. Game over. It's like, no, we're going to give them a chance to kind of get back on the, the saddle here so they can be competent in court. Why not just explain it that way? I mean, is it ethical? Is it even legal to, to delay the, the hearing here under a publicly stated false pretense? It does this happen behind the scenes where everybody back in the judges chambers are on the same page of this is competency. But yeah, we don't have the autopsy yet. So let's just say it's that to the media. Does that, does that happen? It would be very unusual, but this is a very unusual case. You know, we were just talking about Cobrager recently where a public defender had one of their experts sign an NDA regarding that expert work apparently that that is extremely uncommon.

8:14But the world's eyes were on that case. The world's eyes are on this case and I wouldn't, and judges have discretion often to control the proceedings to maintain decorum and integrity of the judicial institution. And you know, there are things that are, that happen, what's called under seal. There are things that happen that are just not publicly available. So it's possible. But if the fence really did think that their client had competency issues, usually you have an ethical duty to raise that. And then there's a whole sort of parallel competency procedure that you have to go through. So yeah, I would say certainly unusual, some unusual case. So it, but again, it could be possible that, you know, it's a legitimate claim about the medical examiner's report, but since they're seeing, you know, so they can be slow walking that knowing that the next issue they may have is a competency issue, just going, just trying to buy in time just because they think it might be an issue.

9:16I mean, just, just listening to Nick makes me think it's going to be an issue. Yeah, and you know, Robin, I can understand the prosecutor really wanted to have that autopsy report by the time of the preliminary hearing that that is usually a critical piece of a preliminary hearing. And they probably just want to make sure that they have all of this ready to roll. So there are no missteps. There are no outs that that could be a piece of this delay as well. And he's behind bars anyway, you know, it's one of these things. He's not on the loose. He's not on bail and sees, and he's suffering behind bars. So I mean, yeah, it's kind of strange. When is the time for the defense of Nick Riner to queue up the not guilty by reason of insanity plea? Because right now it's just sitting as not guilty. On a California law, you have to do two, please, you have to do not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, two different filings. But they only got the one. Is that something that they are literally waiting for for the pretrial hearing to bring

10:17that up? Is there a reason to wait for that? Is it more strategic on their part to wait for that rather than throwing that into the ether before the autopsy comes out? In most jurisdictions, Tony, there is the courts want people to raise issues like not guilty of reason of insanity promptly. It's not something you can just sit on and then like do a trial by ambush, ambush thing a few weeks before the trial. I'm like, no, actually, you know what? He's not guilty by reason of insanity, now in prosecution catch up. Usually you have to raise that quickly, just as you have to do with alibi in most jurisdictions. It's not something you can just sit on and wait. So it's a bit unusual that they haven't raised it yet. I'm sure they have done at least an initial mental health evaluation. And usually that initial evaluation can tell a defense attorney, hey, we have a viable NGRI plea or we don't, unclear why they wouldn't be in a position to raise that defense

11:21if they're going to raise it. When do you see the last, like the deadline for them being able to do that? It varies by jurisdiction, but you know, I think in Colorado, it says something like as early as practicable. And so, you know, if you've had the mental health evaluation and you have grounds to believe you're going to raise a not guilty by reason of insanity, defense, you got to do it. There isn't always a hard and fast deadline varies by jurisdiction, but it's usually that the, it's customary to have to do that early on, man. You can't just, you can't just sit on that. Is that another reason to delay right now using the medical examiner's excuse to do that? So they could get more time to get that in. Again, I'm just kind of stuck with that. They've had enough time. I know. You think, you know, in cases where I've, I've explored that. We did that within the first, you know, month and a half after the incident. And here we're going on months and months and months. I just don't see a reason why they haven't raised it yet if they believe that it's a valid

12:24defense. I just keep going back to what the hell is taking nearly a year for an autopsy to be performing. Is there that much of a backlog? And it doesn't really matter who you are or what's pending. We're just got to, I mean, they got the bodies. This is done. I mean, what more can possibly be needed to have extra time to complete this report? This just doesn't make any logical sense to me. Is there anyone in this case defense or prosecution that could somehow put a wedge into this that would be delaying that report in some way, Shaper? I don't know the answer to this question, but it just, it's a red flag. It doesn't make any sense to me. And when you see a red flag and something kind of critical is an autopsy, you're like, what the hell is going on here? Why is this rather than just accepting, oh, that's, they're just, they're slow. Yeah, no, it's a head scratcher, you know, compared to, look at the case of Barry Morphe, right? So Suzanne Morphew is his wife and the alleged victim in the case. Her body wasn't found until at least a year after she disappeared.

13:27It was all decomposed and, and the, I get that, you know, and, and so that's, in that case, where they had to like go into her bones and try to find this extremely esoteric poison that they claim they found, that's going to take a good amount of time. But when you have a rather traditional means of death that these coroners have experienced, I imagine, hundreds of times. What would be the hangout? Why, why, why can't you just, an issue, issue the autopsy report with the apparent findings? I just don't get it. I don't think, has there been turnover in the office? Has it acid? You know, I just don't know. It's strange. I'm curious, did they get less, you know, in the David case, did they get her autopsy and she's like severely decomposed in a bag? I think they got hers faster than this. In her, and she was a puddle in a, in a bag in a frunk. It might be the same folks, honest. I know, maybe it took too long doing hers. I don't know. I don't know. And because, so what do they, I mean, what takes so long in this autopsy?

14:30I mean, it's not, I mean, it's, it's, it's a, I mean, it's gunshots. I mean, just what the hell? I don't get it. And now I hear you. Yeah, there's just, it's a big question. And I think one that deserves an answer. Maybe some more digging there might be a good idea. Your thoughts in the comments section on Substack and YouTube. We'd love to hear from you. Be sure to weigh in the links are in the description.