On Tuesday's broadcast of "The View," co-host Sunny Hostin disclosed her past role as a holdout juror in the high-profile 1991 murder trial of Daniel Rakowitz, a case that garnered significant media attention in New York City and earned the defendant the moniker "Butcher of Tompkins Square Park." Hostin's revelation came as the panel discussed the "insanity defense" in connection with the ongoing Lindsay Clancy case, surprising her fellow co-hosts Joy Behar, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Sara Haines.
Hostin, 57, stated she served on the jury before attending law school and long before her career as a federal prosecutor. The Rakowitz trial centered on the 1989 death of Monika Beerle. Rakowitz was accused of boiling Beerle's body parts and subsequently feeding them to unhoused individuals in New York City. The jury ultimately acquitted him by reason of insanity, a verdict that Hostin, then identified by her birth name Asuncion Cummings, was instrumental in securing.
Hostin explained her perspective on the case, telling her co-hosts that she believed Rakowitz was "clearly psychotic." She elaborated on her conviction, stating, "He did not mean to kill her, and once he killed her, he panicked, he chopped up her body parts, yes, boiled her body parts." She further noted the report that he served the remains to unhoused people in a soup. Hostin referenced a 1991 New York Times article that quoted her, identifying her as the single juror who prevented a guilty verdict. In that report, she stated, "We don’t think he intended to kill her. But once he did, he dismembered her body in an effort to commit the perfect crime."
The announcement prompted a surprised reaction from her colleagues. Joy Behar immediately recognized the defendant, asking, "The guy who ate the victims?" Alyssa Farah Griffin pressed Hostin, exclaiming, "You got this guy off!?" Hostin rejected this characterization, reiterating her staunch belief in the insanity defense. "That’s how much I believe in the insanity defense. He fed her body parts to the unhoused," she affirmed.
Hostin recounted the intense nine-day sequestration of the jury, describing the contentious deliberations. She revealed that one juror became so enraged that they "threw a chair at me." Despite the pressure, Hostin maintained her position. "But, one by one, I picked them off. I said, ‘What about this? What about that?’ We ended up, all 12, unanimously voting that he was not criminally responsible on reason of insanity," she explained.
Following the verdict, Daniel Rakowitz was committed to a mental institution. Hostin clarified his current status, stating, "He is still in a mental institution being treated. That’s a different type of prison, and he’s being treated because he’s sick." Rakowitz remains at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center in New York. A separate jury in 2004 ruled that he no longer posed a danger to society.
The revelation underscores the complex and often contentious nature of
