BS BULLETIN:

• Sunny Hostin revealed she was the holdout juror in the notorious 1991 trial of Daniel Rakowitz, the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park.”
• Hostin said the jury was sequestered for nine days, another juror threw a chair at her, and she eventually persuaded all 11 others to find Rakowitz not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.
• Rep. Nancy Mace’s reaction after watching Hostin tell the story: “I have nothing to add. Speechless.”

Sunny Hostin had some personal experience to offer while “The View” debated the lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy case.

Boy, did she ever.

Hostin casually revealed Tuesday that before becoming a lawyer and federal prosecutor, she was herself the holdout juror in one of New York City’s most gruesome murder trials.

“The reason I feel so strongly about this holdout juror is because I was a holdout juror in a case — in the Daniel Rakowitz case,” Hostin said.

Joy Behar immediately knew the name.

“The guy who ate the victims?” Behar asked.

“Yes,” Hostin replied.

Alyssa Farah Griffin gasped.

Rakowitz became known as the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park” after the 1989 killing of his roommate, 26-year-old Swiss dance student Monika Beerle.

Prosecutors said Rakowitz killed Beerle, dismembered her body and boiled her head. He also claimed to have eaten some of her remains and fed human flesh to homeless people in Tompkins Square Park.

Hostin then revealed something she apparently hadn’t previously discussed publicly.

She had been on the jury.

And not merely on it.

Hostin read aloud from a contemporary account saying that several jurors identified one holdout as principally responsible for preventing a guilty verdict.

“That was me,” Hostin announced.

Her co-hosts looked stunned.

Hostin explained that she believed Rakowitz was clearly psychotic and therefore should not be held criminally responsible under the insanity defense.

“He did not mean to kill her,” Hostin said, explaining that after Beerle’s death, Rakowitz “panicked.”

Then she started listing what happened next.

He chopped up the body.

He boiled parts of it.

He attempted to conceal the crime.

And, Hostin said, “he fed her body parts to the unhoused.”

That was enough for Farah Griffin.

“And you got this guy off?!” she blurted.

“That’s how much I believe in the insanity defense,” Hostin replied.

But the story somehow got stranger.

Hostin said jurors were sequestered for nine days while she refused to budge.

“One juror threw a chair at me,” she recalled.

“They were so angry with me.”

Hostin said she kept working on the other jurors anyway.

“One by one I picked them off,” she said, describing how she challenged them on the evidence until eventually all 12 agreed Rakowitz was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

There is an important distinction in what happened next.

Rakowitz wasn’t simply acquitted and sent home.

He was committed to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, a secure psychiatric facility. Years later, when an advisory jury concluded he remained mentally ill but was no longer dangerous, a judge disagreed with the latter conclusion and denied his attempt to leave the secure facility.

Hostin brought up the extraordinary story because “The View” was discussing the very different case of Lindsay Clancy.

Clancy’s Massachusetts murder trial ended in a mistrial this month after 11 jurors reportedly favored finding her not criminally responsible because of insanity while one juror held out for conviction. Clancy is accused of killing her three young children in 2023 and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Her attorneys are now seeking an inquiry into holdout juror Michael Desronvil, including allegations involving his cellphone use during deliberations and answers during jury selection. Desronvil’s attorney has sharply criticized that effort as a threat to juror independence.

Hostin strongly objected to going after a holdout juror — and used her own experience to explain why.

Then Nancy Mace saw the clip.

The South Carolina Republican summarized what she’d just watched:

“Sunny Hostin announced on national television today, with some pride, that she was the lone juror who talked eleven people out of convicting a man who dismembered a woman and fed her to the homeless.”

Then Mace apparently decided there really wasn’t much left to say.

“I have nothing to add. Speechless.”

MY QUICK TAKE

I’m stuck on the chair.

Nine days sequestered. Eleven jurors against you. A case involving a dismembered woman, boiled body parts and alleged cannibalism.

Then somebody in the jury room gets so mad they throw furniture at you.

And Sunny Hostin’s reaction 35 years later is basically: Yep, that was me. Eventually I won them over.

Whatever you think about the insanity defense, I suddenly understand why Sunny seems so comfortable sitting at “The View” table.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

• Twitchy — Nancy Mace is speechless over Sunny Hostin’s holdout-juror revelation
• Mediaite — Conservatives react after Hostin reveals her role in the Rakowitz trial
• Yahoo/Entertainment Weekly — Hostin says another juror threw a chair during deliberations
• CT Insider — Clancy holdout juror’s attorney responds to requested investigation