I hope this isn't just an excuse so the jury won't have to make the fateful decision. Trouble is you never know how long or hard they tried to come to unanimous agreement. Maybe this has been going on since day 1 and I'm being way too hard on them. Then again, did someone just say I won't change my mind, and they decided to let the Judge decide. You really have to keep an open mind and not just be stubborn.
I was on a jury once that had to decide if putting the kids in the car while drunk and driving off with them even with people hanging onto the car trying to stop you amounted to child endangerment/abuse. The jury instruction was really clear that all you had to decide was if the kids were in danger of harm and a reasonable or sober person should know it was dangerous. There was one guy, however, who insisted it was NOT child "abuse" unless the driver had physically hit the children despite the jury instruction. It took quite some time to get him to change his vote mainly (at least I think) because he didn't want to admit that he was ignoring the instruction. Otherwise, we would have had a verdict after the first vote.