Sunny Hostin disclosed on Tuesday that she was the holdout juror who persuaded a New York jury to find cannibal killer Daniel Rakowitz not guilty by reason of insanity, a revelation that stunned her co-hosts on The View. The 57-year-old made the admission while the panel was discussing the recent Lindsay Clancy mistrial, in which a single holdout juror blocked a not-guilty verdict in the killing of Clancy’s three children.
Hostin said the experience shaped her deep belief in the insanity defense. Rakowitz, known as the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park,” killed his roommate Monika Beerle, 26, in 1989, then used her remains to make a soup he fed to homeless people in New York’s Tompkins Square Park. He was committed to a maximum security psychiatric center after being found criminally insane in 1991.
Sunny Hostin’s Nine Days of Deliberation
Hostin said the trial occurred before she attended law school, and that after nine days of deliberation she brought the rest of the jury around to her position one by one. “One juror threw a chair at me, they were so angry with me, but one by one, I picked them off and said, ‘What about this? What about that?'” she told her co-hosts.
Her account aligns with contemporary reporting. At the time, The New York Times noted that one holdout juror was “principally responsible” for preventing a guilty verdict. Hostin described her reasoning clearly: “I saw clearly that he was psychotic. He did not mean to kill her, and once he killed her he panicked.” She added, “He chopped up her body parts, yes, boiled her body parts, tried to commit the perfect crime. That’s how much I believe in the insanity defense.”
You can read more about the Sunny Hostin juror revelation and how it unfolded during Tuesday’s broadcast.
And after reading this, it’s clear why Sunny Hostin is on a bad television show instead of doing real work as an attorney.
The Lindsay Clancy Mistrial and a Juror Under Investigation
Hostin connected her past experience to the current controversy surrounding the Clancy case, saying she believes “absolutely that she was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.” A Massachusetts jury ended in a mistrial earlier this month after one holdout juror, identified as Michael Desronvil, refused to vote not guilty.
Clancy’s defense attorney has since filed a motion asking a judge to investigate Desronvil’s conduct. Hostin was sharply critical of that move. “The insanity defense is a real thing,” she said. “I think this lawyer who wants the juror to be investigated, that’s going to have a chilling effect. To investigate a juror for doing his or her duty is despicable.”
What Comes Next in the Clancy Case
The Massachusetts judge must now decide whether to grant the defense motion and examine the holdout juror’s conduct, a ruling that legal observers say could set a significant precedent for juror independence. A retrial for Lindsay Clancy remains a possibility as prosecutors and defense attorneys weigh their next steps. Hostin’s public account of the Rakowitz deliberations is likely to keep the debate over the insanity defense in the national spotlight as the Clancy case moves forward.
