The View co-host said on air that she was the lone juror who pushed for an insanity verdict in a notorious New York murder case. She said another juror threw a chair at her before she brought the rest around one by one.
Sunny Hostin told a story about herself on live television Tuesday that her co-hosts clearly had not heard before.
The View co-host revealed she served as the holdout juror in a 1991 New York murder trial, and that she was the one who convinced 11 other jurors to change their verdict.
She was in her early twenties at the time.
What she said happened in the jury room
Hostin said she concluded the defendant was not criminally responsible for his actions.
“I could clearly see that he was psychotic,” she told her co-hosts.
The rest of the jury did not agree. According to Hostin, when she told them she believed the verdict should be not guilty by reason of insanity, the room turned on her.
One juror threw a chair at her.
She held her position anyway. “They were so angry with me,” Hostin said. “But one by one, I picked them off.”
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity in February 1991. The defendant, Daniel Rakowitz, has been held at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center in New York since.
His roommate, Monika Beerle, an aspiring dancer, was killed in 1989.
She said the same thing to the New York Times in 1991
Hostin backed up her account on air with a quote she gave the New York Times after the verdict.
“We don’t think he intended to kill her,” she said at the time. “But once he did, he dismembered her body in an effort to commit the perfect crime.”
That interview is part of the paper’s archive from February 1991.
Why it came up now
Hostin brought up the case while discussing a current trial.
The View was talking about the Lindsay Clancy case in Massachusetts, which ended in a mistrial earlier this month after a single juror held out against the majority. In that case, 11 jurors reportedly favored finding Clancy not criminally responsible, and one did not.
Hostin said she related to those 11, because she had once been on the other side of that exact situation.
That is the connection she was drawing. She had been the lone juror arguing for an insanity verdict, and she knew what it felt like to sit in that room.
Her legal background is not new, but this is
Hostin’s résumé has always been part of her role on the show.
She is a licensed attorney and a former federal prosecutor who worked as a trial attorney in the Justice Department. She spent years as a legal analyst on television before joining The View in 2016, and she still handles most of the show’s legal segments.
What was new Tuesday was the personal piece. Serving on a jury in a high-profile murder trial as a young woman, and being the one person standing against the room, is a formative experience she had not shared publicly on the show.
It also arrived in a fairly ordinary way. She was not promoting a book or making an announcement. The subject came up, and she said it.
The View has been a lightning rod lately
The timing lands during a complicated period for the program and its network.
The View airs on ABC, which Disney owns. The show is currently the subject of an FCC investigation, and Disney sued the commission last month over what it called a retaliatory campaign against the network, including an early review of eight ABC station licenses.
Reports also indicate the show has recently faced budget cuts.
None of that has anything to do with Hostin’s jury service. But it does mean the show is being watched closely right now, and moments like this travel further than they otherwise might.
I can tell you social media is shocked.
The View airs weekdays on ABC.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
TMZ (Sept. 23, 2026), the report on Hostin’s on-air revelation, her quotes and the trial details
The View on ABC (Sept. 22, 2026), the broadcast in which Hostin made the comments
The New York Times (February 1991), Hostin’s original quote following the verdict
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