The jury in the criminal trial of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) adjourned shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday after sending a note to the judge saying they have “given the evidence consideration and have exhausted ourselves for the day.”

In an apparently joking reference to their earlier conflicts, which required the judge to call them into court and remind them to be civil to each other, the jury foreman wrote, “we are unanimous in requesting a break.”

The jury will begin its third day of deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Friday.

Judge Emmet Sullivan noted after he dismissed the jury that “everyone was smiling” and that there was no indication of the conflict that had brought deliberations to a halt earlier in the day.