They asked for Noel's testimony about the aggression of his dogs and about one incident in which a neighbor and his wife were allegedly the subject of a scary confrontation in the building where they lived.

The request was announced just moments after the seven-man, five-woman jury resumed deliberations at 9 a.m. They talked for about five hours Tuesday. Their first request was for chalk for a jury room blackboard.

Skip Cooley, who lived next door to the defendants, testified that one dog once lunged at him as he got out of an elevator. Noel discussed the incident during grand jury hearings.

Cooley said the dogs were normally docile toward him, but would became "attentive" toward his 5-foot-tall wife who weighed less than the 100-pound animals.

The jurors got the case Tuesday after a stormy conclusion during which Superior Court Judge James L. Warren threatened to lock up a defense attorney if she didn't sit down and keep quiet.

"Take your seat now and (do) not get up again or your next objection will be made from the holding cell behind you," the judge told Nedra Ruiz after she tried to interrupt the prosecutor's closing argument.

Ruiz represents Marjorie Knoller, 46, who is charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and keeping a mischievous dog that killed a person. Knoller's 60-year-old husband faces the latter two charges.

The attorney was unrepentant outside court, saying the judge wrongly kept her from objecting to Assistant District Attorney Jim Hammer's closing argument.

She had tried to argue that Hammer was misinterpreting a piece of evidence, but the judge said the prosecutor was entitled to give his own interpretation during a closing argument.

Warren had also rebuked Ruiz at the beginning of the trial for crawling on the courtroom floor during her opening statement.

Deliberations got under way nearly 14 months after Diane Whipple, a 33-year-old college lacrosse coach, was mauled by one of the couple's two large presa canario dogs. Knoller, who was present during the attack, faces the more serious second-degree murder charge.

The case was moved from San Francisco because of pretrial publicity.

Hammer told the jury it was clear the defendants ignored repeated warnings that their dogs, Bane and Hera, were dangerous.

He also criticized Ruiz for accusing Whipple's domestic partner, Sharon Smith, of lying on the witness stand when she said Whipple had been bitten by one of the dogs before and was afraid of them.

Hammer declined to respond to another of Ruiz's statements during her closing argument on Monday, that the prosecution was trying to curry favor with the San Francisco homosexual community by bringing the case. Whipple was gay.

"There was a drumbeat for prosecution in this case by the gay community," Ruiz said outside court Tuesday. She accused the judge of responding to it with an "outrageous bail" of $2 million for each defendant.

"Judge Warren caved in to political pressure," she said.