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Sunny Hostin Identified as Holdout Juror in Rakowitz Case

By Drooid · Sep 24, 2026, 3:42 AM UTC · How we work

Summary

Story summary

Sunny Hostin said she was the holdout juror in the 1991 New York murder trial of Daniel Rakowitz.
The New York Times identified her as Asuncion Cummings, the juror principally responsible for the insanity verdict.
Hostin described Rakowitz as psychotic, believing he panicked rather than intended to kill.
She recalled a juror threw a chair at her, yet the jury unanimously returned the insanity verdict.

History

Historical Context

After Daniel M'Naghten’s 1843 acquittal for killing Edward Drummond, the British Parliament codified the M'Naghten Rules, requiring defendants to lack knowledge of their act’s nature or wrongfulness. U.S. courts adopted the test unchanged from the 1847 People v. Freeman case, and more than 1,200 American insanity pleas have since invoked it, prompting ongoing legislative review of mental-health statutes.

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Story summary

Sunny Hostin said she was the holdout juror in the 1991 New York murder trial of Daniel Rakowitz.
The New York Times identified her as Asuncion Cummings, the juror principally responsible for the insanity verdict.
Hostin described Rakowitz as psychotic, believing he panicked rather than intended to kill.
She recalled a juror threw a chair at her, yet the jury unanimously returned the insanity verdict.

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