[Don Lemon, Cnn Anchor:] It is the top of the hour, everyone. I'm Don Lemon live in Sanford, Florida. Outside the Seminole County courthouse where the George Zimmerman trial is going on. We've heard from the jurors after 13 12 hours of deliberating, about nine hours of deliberating today. What we've heard from the jurors from the judge, the judge came in and said the jurors have a question regarding manslaughter. And they needed to address that question. She called for a recess of about 30 minutes to figure out exactly what was going on. They came back after 30 minutes with the attorney. They talked about case law, exactly what they could address, what kinds of questions they could address with the jurors. Both sides agree the prosecution and the defense along with the attorney, that they would present the jury with a handwritten note that was written by the judge saying that the court could not address general questions regarding manslaughter, but they could address specific questions for a specific question if the jurors did have that regarding manslaughter. So what the judge said, just to give her 15 minutes so the deputy and the court and the court officer could present that to the jury and the jury could get back to them and she would come back in 15 minutes or so and bring that to the court and then they would decide what to do after that. She also said the jury has ordered dinner and she said to both attorneys, both sides, that you can if you want to take an hour but give her 15 minutes. So, we have significant developments here a significant development in the George Zimmerman murder trial. Leading many to wonder if the jurors, if the jury here has moved beyond second-degree murder and now they're focusing on manslaughter. That's according to prosecutors. That's according to court watchers and people who have been doing this much longer than I have. Paul Callan is an analyst here, a legal analyst. Jeffrey Toobin is a legal analyst as well. Sunny Hostin is our legal analyst. And they are all joining us here. Holly Hughes is a former prosecutor. And Brian Kabateck is a former prosecutor. I am well represented here by a number of people who know a lot. And also Faith Jenkins joins me as well. I want to get back to our Jeffrey Toobin because he has been watching this. Again, specifically, no Jeffrey Toobin. All right. Sunny is my right-hand lady here. She has been doing this. So, Sunny, as you listened to the judge and again very methodical. You said this is important because this may be a point of appeal so that the judge has to be very careful. Everyone has to be very careful.
[Sunny Hostin, Cnn Legal Analyst:] Absolutely. And you see this all the time. Jury instructions being questioned and cases reversed because of improper jury instructions. So this judge is very smart. She understands that that's a possibility and she is being very careful and getting, if you noticed, the agreement of both the defense and the prosecution. And so, I think that's important. And she was right in determining that really that question, you know, we all have these jury instructions in front of us. That question was not very specific. I mean, there is an entire half a page about manslaughter. What is the clarification that they need? I suspect that they are going to ask a question about negligence because that is part of the jury instructions on manslaughter. Maybe they are concerned with what is mere negligence, what is negligence, what is intent?
[Lemon:] This is what you said each of us has a duty to act responsibly toward others. If there is a violation of that duty without any conscious intent to harm, that violations negligence.
[Hostin:] Right.
[Lemon:] What does that mean?
[Hostin:] What it means is if you're just merely negligent and you didn't mean to do anything, if there was some sort of accident, then you can't be found guilty of manslaughter. But if you intended to do harm to someone then you are guilty of manslaughter. It's not the type of intent that you see in second-degree murder where you have to have the depraved mind, you have to have ill will.
[Lemon:] So, listen, can the defense say the gun accidently they can't say the gun accidently went off?
[Hostin:] No, they cannot. They can't make any other arguments to the jury. They've made their arguments. One thing that we were talking about after closing arguments, if you noticed, the defense didn't take on manslaughter. They really didn't talk much about it. They certainly talked a lot about second-degree murder because, of course that is the charge that exposed their client to life in prison without the possibility of parole. They kind of left out there no theory of defense to manslaughter. That may be coming back to bite them now.
[Lemon:] OK. Holly Hughes, you've been watching this. Have you ever been presented with anything like this in court?
[Holly Hughes, Former Prosecutor:] Well, with the jury coming out with a question? Absolutely. It happens all the time, especially when you have something like this that is so powerfully charged, but it is a largely circumstantial evidence case. You've got the defendant's statements and he gave multiple, Don. We heard them come in through the prosecution witnesses, the officers that took them, but other than George Zimmerman's statements you kind of have to weave together all the other evidence that the prosecution presented. The 911 calls, what was heard on those. The phone call with Rachel Jeantel. We've got to look at the time lines and weave it in with the forensics. We know where the keys and cell phone were found on the ground, we know where George Zimmerman's flashlight was found on the ground. But you've got to put all those things together to figure out what happened, so it's largely circumstantial. You don't have somebody out there with a video phone recording the whole thing. So this is not unusual. The jury is trying to pick through it one thing at a time. Again, I think they probably have already gone through the discussion on second-degree murder. Now, that's not to say some of those jurors don't want to convict on that charge. But that's to say they fully fleshed it out, looked at the elements, and now at least one of them wants to talk about manslaughter. Is it? Is it not? So, this is a perfectly acceptable it tells me the jury is really taking it seriously and working hard. Just like I mean, Sunny, every one of us who has done this for a long time who has stood in the courtroom and made these arguments knows, 95 percent of appeals will come back on a jury issue, whether it's a problem with the jury instructions, Don, or whether it's a problem with jury selection.
[Lemon:] Right. Yes.
[Hughes:] Ninety-five percent of cases that come back, it's a problem with the jury so they're just doing what they need to do to make sure in any event this does not get reversed if there is a conviction.
[Lemon:] Yes. And the breaking news as you saw earlier on CNN is not that the jury ordered dinner. The breaking news is that the jury has some question about manslaughter. They need some clarification about a manslaughter charge so that they can move forward. Now, in that, the judge did announce that the jury has ordered dinner and said that the attorneys will get a break for about an hour shortly. But she asked for 15 minutes to see how the jury responded to the note that she sent the jury. Again, I want to reset here and tell our viewers exactly what happened. So just over an hour ago, the judge in this George Zimmerman trial came out and said that the jury had a question about manslaughter. They needed some clarification. Everyone convened including the attorneys, George Zimmerman, his family. All of the court watchers, all of the reporters came in and then she spoke to the attorneys and she said, I want to find out specifically what they need and give me 30 minutes. It took a 30- minute recess. She came back into the court to find out, found out what they needed. And then met there you see them earlier. Every one of the attorneys approached the bench. And then they after that all talked about some case law, exactly what they need, what have you, and then they decided after this that they needed to tell the jury that they couldn't talk in general about manslaughter but they could talk specifics. So, if they had specific questions or a specific question about manslaughter, that the court would address that. They gave that to the jurors, sent it with the court deputy about ten minutes ago and are just waiting to hear back from the jury. So, give us a few minutes here. We want to get to a quick break. We'll bring you to the courtroom and go back inside live right after this. It's a significant development in the George Zimmerman case.