NEW YORK — Deciding the fate of the most famous man in rap is taking its toll on the jury in Sean "Puffy" Combs weapons possession and bribery trial.

As their second day of deliberations wore on, one female juror appeared near tears, and the entire panel sent a note to Judge Charles Solomon at 6:15 p.m., saying they were tired and frustrated and wanted to quit for the day.

"We are very exhausted and feel any further discussion would be counterproductive," the forewoman wrote in the note.

The judge agreed, telling the seven men and five women to go to dinner and then to the hotel where they are sequestered. Deliberations will resume Friday morning and continue through the weekend if no verdict is reached.

"We think this is perfectly normal," said Combs' attorney, Benjamin Brafman, as he left court. "You have 12 people conferring in a small room."

The panel appeared to be concerned with ballistic evidence from the 1999 night club shooting that landed the rap mogul in jail.

The jury asked that nearly two hours of a police ballistic expert's testimony be read back to them Thursday afternoon. Earlier in the day, the jury requested court officers bring them photographs of the bullet-pocked interior of the disco as well as the actual bullets and shell casings recovered at the scene.

Combs, the 31-year-old head of Bad Boy Entertainment spent most of the day in the empty courtroom reading The Celestine Prophecy, the popular bestselling new age book, and chatting with his attorneys who continued to describe him as confident, but concerned.

Outside the Manhattan courthouse, scores of journalists from around the world kept vigil for a verdict.

The charges against Combs and two co-defendants, bodyguard Anthony "Wolf" Jones and rapper Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, stem from a Dec. 27, 1999, shooting at Club New York, a Times Square disco where the trio was partying with Combs' then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez.

After an argument broke out between Combs' entourage and another group of patrons, guns were pulled and three bystanders struck. Shells from both 9 mm guns, the type of weapon Combs, Jones and Barrow are accused of possessing and a .40-caliber weapon were recovered. Barrow, an artist on Combs' label, is accused of shooting the three and Combs of firing a bullet into the air.

Brafman and Combs' other attorney, Johnnie Cochran, speculated that the panel was still weighing the evidence against Barrow, who faces 25 years in prison for attempted murder. On Wednesday, just four hours into their deliberation they asked Solomon to re-explain the most serious charges against Barrow.

Ballistic evidence was important to both sides. Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos told the jury that by matching the trajectories of the bullets mapped by the expert with the eyewitness accounts it was clear Combs fired a gun that struck the ceiling and that Barrow squeezed off bullets that hit the victims and the wall.

The defense argued that the presence of a .40-caliber weapon in the club, a weapon never found by the police, was reasonable doubt. Barrow's lawyer said he had fired about the crowd in self-defense after someone in the opposing group drew a gun and began firing. The defense noted that it was impossible to tell whether the wounded were struck by a .40-caliber or a 9 mm gun.