The #JodiArias penalty retrial was halted for unexplained reasons today.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we do not need you for the rest of the afternoon," Judge Stephens told jurors after lunch.
The judge inexplicably asked one juror, No. 17, to stay and apparently met privately with the juror and the attorneys. When Stephens and the lawyers emerged from the meeting, there was no additional explanation for the delay and court adjourned for the day.
The delay follows the dismissal this week of two jurors. The jury panel now includes 16 people -- 12 jurors plus four alternates.
"If they go below 12 it's a mistrial," legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold told HuffPost.
Former police detective Esteban Flores told reporters on his way out of court Thursday that no jurors were dismissed. However, Gold said that "doesn't mean that one won't be dismissed."
"If the juror had a family emergency, why wouldn't the judge say so? That happens all the time, but it didn't happen here," Gold continued. "The juror went into chambers to discuss something and when a court does things that are so secretive, it makes you wonder."