The buzzer sounded above the door to the jury room in the stuffy fifth-floor courtroom at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse at 9:34 a.m. Thursday.
The nine women and three men entering the fourth day of deliberations in former USC assistant football coach Todd McNair's defamation trial against the NCAA had a question.
In the note, one of the jurors asked to be excused because she isn't conversant in English.
"I do not believe I know enough English to understand this court case," the note quoted the woman as saying. "Deliberations have taken long because I fail to understand the details of the evidence.