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The winding legal saga of Christopher Deedy will apparently continue as county Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro said Friday he will appeal a ruling that the federal agent does not have to face a third trial for fatally shooting a man at a Waikiki fast-food restaurant in 2011.
“This case involves the unjustified killing of Kollin Elderts, a young Hawaii man,” Kaneshiro said in a brief statement. “It is our moral and ethical obligation to pursue all legal remedies. We will seek justice by taking this case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.”
Earlier Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson issued a decision in line with Deedy’s attorneys, who had argued that standing trial for manslaughter after having been acquitted of murder would violate Deedy’s protection against double jeopardy in the U.S. Constitution.
Watson directed the state to release Deedy from the conditions of bail and of his supervised release, a status he has been under for seven years.
The planned appeal was welcomed by those in the community who have pushed for the prosecution of Deedy. But a spokeswoman for a group known as Justice for Kollin Elderts said Friday that she continues to be disappointed in the way the case was handled.
TIMELINE: A FATAL ENCOUNTERA look back at the case involving Christopher Deedy and the death of Kollin Elderts.
Nov. 5, 2011
U.S. State Department Special Agent Christopher W. Deedy, then 27, of Arlington, Va., fatally shoots 23-year-old Kollin K. Elderts of Kailua in the chest at the Kuhio Avenue McDonald’s restaurant after a verbal confrontation escalated into a physical altercation. The Washington, D.C.-based special agent was in Honolulu to provide security for the multinational Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference. He had been on Oahu barely 12 hours and had been out drinking with friends before firing three shots from a 9 mm Glock handgun. Only one shot hits Elderts. The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s office said Elderts had a blood alcohol level of 0.12.
Nov. 8, 2011
About 70 protesters march from Old Stadium Park in Moiliili to the Hawai‘i Convention Center and hold a vigil in front of the McDonald’s where Elderts was shot.
Nov. 16, 2011
An Oahu grand jury indicts Deedy, charging him with second-degree murder and using a firearm to commit the murder. He is released on $250,000 bail. The same day, funeral services are held for Elderts at Hawaiian Memorial Park in Kaneohe.
April 15, 2013
Jury selection begins in Circuit Court for Deedy’s first murder trial.
July 8, 2013
Honolulu police officer Kaleo Hosaka testifies on the first day of the trial that Deedy smelled of alcohol, had glassy eyes, slurred his speech and had a hard time balancing himself after he shot Elderts. Later in the trial, Dr. Kyle Perry, an emergency room physician at The Queen’s Medical Center, testified that he did not smell alcohol on Deedy and that Deedy did not appear intoxicated.
Aug. 27, 2013
A Circuit Court jury reaches an 8-4 impasse in favor of acquitting Deedy of murder. Jury foreman Justin Odagiri says the jury initially was split 6-6 when deliberations began Aug. 15, shifted to 7-4 for acquittal — with one abstention — and ended with an 8-4 deadlock. Circuit Court Judge Karen Ahn then declares a mistrial.
June 2014
Jury selection begins for Deedy’s second trial.
July 10, 2014
Opening statements begin in Deedy’s retrial.
Aug. 14, 2014
The second jury votes to acquit Deedy of murder but cannot not reach a verdict on lesser charges of reckless manslaughter or assault in the first or second degree. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Janice Futa says she will recommend trying Deedy a third time.
Aug. 15, 2014
About 50 people protesting Deedy’s acquittal — along with the law enforcement killings of people on the mainland — march through Waikiki.
Aug. 29, 2014
Judge Ahn releases a tentative timeline to try Deedy a third time, in September 2015. Because he was acquitted during his second trial, Deedy can no longer be tried for murder, but can face manslaughter or assault charges.
April 6, 2018
Deedy’s attorneys file a petition in U.S. District Court asking the court to declare any further prosecution a violation of Deedy’s constitutional right against double jeopardy.
Friday
U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson rules that Deedy does not have to face a third trial in the death of Elderts. Watson directs the state to release Deedy from the conditions of bail and of his supervised pretrial release. The city prosecutor’s office said it will appeal Watson’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The news of an appeal does not give back the Elderts family the last seven years of suffering,” Kalamaokaaina Niheu said following a news conference at Iolani Palace.
Deedy attorney Thomas Otake, meanwhile, expressed disappointment with Kaneshiro’s vow to forge ahead with the fight, although he added that he wasn’t surprised.
“When you are a prosecutor, it is not win at all costs,” he said in an emailed statement. “You cannot abandon ethics, integrity, and constitutional principles just to get a conviction. It is time to let this case go. Any appeal at this point would be a waste of governmental resources and taxpayer dollars.”
Earlier in the day, Otake told reporters at a news conference that he phoned Deedy in Virginia as soon as the ruling came out, and his client shared relief that “this is finally over.”
“Although we’re very relieved by all of this, it’s not a day of celebration,” Otake said. “We recognize that both the Elderts family and Deedy family, their lives have been changed forever because of this case. And we just hope everyone can move forward and move on from it.”
In November 2011 Deedy was in Hawaii as a U.S. State Department special agent assigned to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting when he fatally shot Elderts, a Windward Oahu resident, during an altercation inside a Waikiki McDonald’s.
Deedy argued that he had properly identified himself as a federal agent, was not drunk and acted in self-defense, while the prosecution challenged those assertions.
The first trial ended with the jurors deadlocked 8-4 in favor of finding Deedy not guilty of murder. The jury was not given the opportunity to consider any other charge.
The second trial ended with the jurors deadlocked 7-5 in favor of finding Deedy not guilty of manslaughter. State Circuit Judge Karen Ahn acquitted Deedy of murder but ordered a third trial for manslaughter.
Deedy appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, but all of his double-jeopardy claims were rejected by the high court.
A third trial was scheduled for October, but Deedy filed a federal petition in April claiming that a third trial would violate his rights. That’s when the case landed in Watson’s courtroom.
In his ruling Friday, Watson said the result of the first trial represented an acquittal of reckless manslaughter.
“The circuit court acquitted Deedy of reckless manslaughter. The circuit court did so by ruling, at Deedy’s first trial, that there was no ‘evidence to support manslaughter’ because the state had not shown that the ‘lethal shot’ was ‘reckless,’” Watson’s decision said.
The federal judge also rejected the prosecution’s attempts to strike down the Deedy petition due to alleged process errors and jurisdictional and procedural defects.
Otake said prosecutors over the years have repeatedly said on and off the record that they didn’t think manslaughter applies in this case and that they weren’t going to pursue the charge.
“It wasn’t until they lost and agent Deedy was acquitted of murder that the prosecutors changed their tune,” he said.
The decision to reverse course and pursue the lesser charge was “incredibly unfair, unethical and not right,” Otake said.
Deedy remains an employee of the State Department, but his police powers have been taken away and he’s on desk duty, his attorney said.
Otake previously said the trials have drained Deedy financially and that he may have reached a point where he will ask the state to pay for his litigation expenses.
Order Granting Christopher Deedy Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd
Honolulu Star-Advertiser staff writer Leila Fujimori contributed to this report.
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