Nick Reiner's Parents Left Him WHAT Before They Died?!

Tony Brueski (0:00)

This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski.

Tony Brueski (0:20)

Monday night at the Emmys, Jamie Lee Curtis stood on stage and wept for Rob Reiner. Just a week earlier, he had won a posthumous Emmy for The Bear, his very first acting Emmy in 48 years, breaking a record gap previously held by his father, Carl, like father like son. Hollywood was saying a heartbreaking goodbye to one of its absolute legends.

And then came Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning.

LA County District Attorney Nathan Hockman stepped up to the microphone and announced that the man accused of stabbing Rob and Michele Reiner to death will not face the death penalty after all. I mean, think about it for a second. Nine months of standing in front of cameras telling everyone death was on the table. And then, you know what? Maybe not. Look, that's the headline. But that is not the real story here. The truth is, the death penalty was never real in this case to begin with. Number one, California hasn't executed a single person since 2006 So, we're talking two decades now. The state literally dismantled its execution chamber in 2019 It had Governor Newsom's moratorium on top of that, and it is functionally impossible. Could they bring it back? I mean, yeah, things change. Sure. I mean, yeah, but... For all intents and purposes, it's one of those speaking terms that becomes more of like political weight than it actually means anything to the functionality of this case or the future of Nick Reiner or the family involved. Right now, nearly 600 human beings are sitting on California's death row. Not one single person is closer to being executed today than they were a decade ago. Out here, the death penalty isn't a real consequence. It's just a political press conference. And Nathan Hockman knows this. He made a huge deal out of reversing George Gascogne's ban on seeking capital punishment back in March of 25 Campaign heavily on it, held pressers about it. But changing the policy only changed what the prosecutor could ask for in court. It didn't change what actually happens to anyone sentenced. I'm going to start saying these proclamations aloud.

That's great.

That's wonderful. But you do realize like nothing can happen. But I shall proclaim it from the mountains. And I am DA Nathan Hockman. And those those Menendez boys shall suffer and burn forever. They'll never be free. OK, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the Reiner case. Oh, OK. Well, to get elected, I, uh, Nick Reiner. Actually, the Reiner murder did happen after the election. So let's be real about that. But anybody in these positions knows the decisions they make now are all political capital or not. Or there are things that will eat away and come back to haunt come election season in just a few years and whenever that is for each individual. So if you have those nice sound bites of we're going to where the death penalty is on the table, anything is possible. Even though you know full well you can't, you take them. It's, I know, it's sick, it's kind of insidious. It's how politics works. And it's always sad when we see politics merging into the lives and the tragedies of its citizens and starts using those tragedies as a reason for another person to cast a vote one way or another.

But it is what it is. So we got a big headline. Death penalty is off the table. We've seen this pattern from Hockman before. Look at how he handled the Menendez brothers, resentencing, calling their self-defense claims fabricated, actively fighting against virtually every surviving member who wanted them freed. The family even tried to have him disqualified from the case. Of course, shut his objection down and re-sentenced the brothers anyway. He took a calculated move knowing that if I say this, there's more votes in that pool than there are in the other. And I'm going to go for that pool.

It's a reason many of us could never be politicians. I can't bullshit that much.

And unfortunately, the masses don't like truth.

That is the exact prosecutor who spent nine long months pretending death was still an option for Nick Reiner. Huckman claims he talked with Nick's siblings, Jake and Romy Reiner, and that they made their views clear. Well, it's great you recognize them in that case, but not the Menendez brothers.

Oh, one family has more clout and connections that can help you out in certain ways, and the other is just victims.