On The View, Sunny Hostin said she was the lone holdout who persuaded 11 others to find Daniel Rakowitz not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1991 trial over Monika Beerle's 1989 murder; an NJ.com update says records dispute that she alone held out.
Hostin said the jury was sequestered for nine days and that one juror threw a chair at her. She said she believed Rakowitz was psychotic and had not meant to kill Beerle, then panicked. The discussion concerned the insanity defense and efforts to examine a holdout juror's deliberations in Lindsay Clancy's trial; Hostin called such scrutiny despicable and warned it could have a chilling effect on the justice system.
The article says The View's producers found a Feb. 23, 1991, New York Times report quoting a juror named Asuncion Cummings, Hostin's given name. Its update does not specify what records challenge her claim to have been the sole holdout. After the acquittal, Rakowitz was sent to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center and transferred to Manhattan Psychiatric Center in 2020, where the article says he has remained.
