Juries as a rule don't like to hang. And particularly in a high-profile case. The judge is also going to instruct them to keep at to try to come to a consensus. They can agree on any of the lesser included murder charges. I'm inclined the think that the only reason they'll hang on the murder charge if one or more people are actually arguing to acquit rather than it being an argument between Murder 1 and Murder 2. They'd hang the jury before they'd acquit on the murder charge if they can't come to agreement on a lesser included charge.
I'm still hoping that the deadlock has to do with premeditation. After watching the judge and attorneys discussing how to answer the self-defense questions it appeared that that particular jury instruction was confusing and they even say they struggled with the language of it themselves for hours, so I think that it's entirely possible that the jury was asking the self-defense questions in order to understand the instructions, not so much because there was anyone that believed he was justified in self-defense. It seemed more about how to reconcile the meaning of the other charges concerning each of the boys and how to apply the instructions that were given...
The more they talk about it the more it seems that the instructions were unclear, and seemed to have more to do with the surviving boys than the one that was killed. I was starting to get confused myself the more they discussed it. I'm even more inclined to believe that since they have come to agreement after these questions were answered on the surviving boys.
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