Star's health problems continue as trial nears end
The jury sent out the question at 9.50am (2.50pm Irish time), and Judge Rodney S Melville communicated with lawyers about it, said media pool co-ordinator Peter Shaplen.
Neither the question nor the response was released to reporters.
Mr Shaplen said it was the judge's custom to handle such matters in chambers.
Jackson's defence team, which was told to be on 10-minute notice throughout deliberations, showed up earlier to join those waiting at the courthouse. The singer does not need to be at court during the jury's deliberations. However, the defendant's father, Joe Jackson, dropped by at mid-morning, and was met by a crush of journalists and fans. Accompanied by comedian-turned-nutritionist Dick Gregory, he went inside the courthouse for a few minutes and then left.
The jurors had received the case on Friday afternoon and deliberated for about two hours before adjourning for the weekend.
The singer is charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy in February or March 2003.
He is also accused of plying him with wine and conspiring to hold the boy's family captive.
Jackson, who has complained of back trouble through much of his trial, spent about six hours at the Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital in Solvang. He left late on Sunday to the screams of fans.
"He's in excruciating pain," the Rev Jesse Jackson, who met with the singer, told CBS TV's The Early Show yesterday.
"The physical pain is real. There's also a sense that he feels betrayed by those that he trusted and was betrayed before a jury."
After leaving the hospital, Jackson returned to his Neverland ranch, about five miles away, to await the verdict with his family.
Olivia Kennedy, switchboard operator at the hospital, said the staff had been asked not to release any information about Jackson.
The singer's spokesperson, Raymone K Bain, told CBS that he had been given muscle relaxants in the past for back spasms and probably received the same treatment Sunday.
Ms Bain said stress contributed to the entertainer's back problem.
The apparent medical problem was one of several the 46-year-old singer has faced at key points in his trial. Jury selection was halted in February when he complained of flu-like symptoms.
Later, he went to the emergency room after he said he fell, and he was forced to rush back to court wearing pyjama bottoms when the judge threatened to have him arrested for non-appearance.
Meanwhile, ABC television played a tape recording of Jackson that it said was made in 2000 by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, then a spiritual adviser to the star.
In the tape, Jackson says he could not live without children, and if he was told he could "never see another child I would kill myself, I swear to you.
"Because I have nothing else to live for."
At one point, Jackson also referred to the young accuser, a cancer patient, saying: "He was cheated out of his childhood."
