A Circuit Court jury reached an impasse at 8-4 in favor of acquitting State Department special agent Christopher Deedy of murdering Kollin Elderts in the 2011 shooting at a Waikiki McDonald’s restaurant, the foreman of the jury said Tuesday.
The panel was split 6-6 when the five days of deliberations began Aug. 15, shifted to 7-4 for acquittal with one abstention last week and ended with the 8-4 deadlock, foreman Justin Odagiri said.
The foreman said he wasn’t sure if the jury could have reached a verdict if the jurors had the option of returning a conviction on the lesser offense of manslaughter.
“It’s hard to say in hindsight,” Odagiri said. “It’s hard to go back and think about that.”
He said the jury tried its best and did what it could, but still feels badly it could not reach a verdict in choosing between an acquittal or conviction on the second-degree murder charge.
“I feel sorry for the next jury,” he said.
Circuit Judge Karen Ahn declared a mistrial after the jury reported Monday that it was deadlocked and further deliberations would not help them reach a verdict.
She is scheduled to meet with the prosecution and defense Friday to set a date for the retrial, which could be next year.
Deedy, 29, of Arlington, Va., who was in Hawaii to provide security for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, is charged with second-degree murder for the shooting early Nov. 5, 2011, at the Kuhio Avenue McDonald’s restaurant.
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Odagiri, 29, a Pearl City resident and Pearl Harbor Shipyard worker, said the panel knew how much time and effort went into the trial.
He said the jury also realized there was no “closure” for relatives and supporters of both Deedy and Elderts who sat in the front row of the gallery on different sides of the aisle during 20 days of testimony spanning five weeks.
“I can’t imagine what they were going through,” he said. “We all felt that way. We all felt for them.”
He said the four who voted for a guilty verdict insisted that Deedy was drunk, but he said there was no hard evidence such as a blood alcohol test and it was difficult to determine how much the alcohol affected him.
“If I knew someone pounded a 24-pack (of beer) every day, I’m sure four beers would be fine,” he said. “Alcohol affects people differently.”
Deedy testified he drank about four beers before he went to McDonald’s.
Odagiri said the jury agreed that Deedy showed his badge to Elderts, but the four voting guilty thought he didn’t make it clear that he was a law enforcement officer.
Odagiri said the eight for acquittal felt that there was a reasonable doubt as to whether the prosecution proved its case of murder.
“There wasn’t enough evidence,” he said.
Odagiri, who declined to say which way he voted, said the jurors all felt that if either Deedy or Elderts had not gone to McDonald’s that morning, the shooting would not have occurred, he said.
“It’s sad that it happened,” he said.
The foreman said the jury didn’t pay much attention to the racial undercurrent that included Deedy saying Elderts called him a “f—— haole” and a mainland federal agent shooting the 23-year-old Kailua resident.
“We had a good set of different races,” he said. “I don’t think it was a factor.”
He said the jury was “split across the board.”
The deadlock was not along the lines that “haoles think one way or locals think one way,” he said.
The foreman said the panel had a tough time sorting through the conflicting testimony.
He said some of the McDonald’s customers were drunk and others were across the room from the escalating deadly confrontation.
The McDonald’s security camera videos that recorded the shooting scene were repeatedly played for the jury.
But Odagiri said the video’s quality was “horrible.” He said it was choppy with images recorded every second or so.
“You had to fill in a lot,” he said.
The panel also viewed with skepticism the testimony of all witnesses, including Deedy and Elderts’ friend Shane Medeiros.
“They’re going to play their testimony to the side they wanted,” he said.
He said deliberations were “very difficult” and, at times, heated with a diverse group of panelists with different backgrounds.
“We had a lot of strong, opinionated people,” Odagiri said.
“After a while, we went in circles,” he said. “Everybody had their side and they were sticking to it.”
Odagiri said he needs a break after the mistrial.
“We can’t get the video out of our heads,” he said.
Meanwhile Tuesday, city Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro said his office will retry Deedy on the murder charge and will not push for the manslaughter option.
Kaneshiro indicated he was not aware of the 8-4 split among the jurors when he talked to reporters.
However, he said it is the judge’s responsibility under a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling to determine if there’s a “rational basis” to give the jurors the choice of returning a conviction on the lesser offense.
He said the judge must make the decision regardless of what the lawyers in a trial recommend.
Ahn had ruled earlier that she wasn’t going to allow jurors to return a manslaughter verdict because she didn’t think there was evidence to support that option.
Kaneshiro said he agrees with Ahn’s ruling.
The prosecutor’s remarks echo what Deputy Prosecutor Janice Futa said Monday after the mistrial.
Kaneshiro also shrugged off criticism by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, a nonprofit organization representing more than 25,000 federal law enforcement officers from around the country and Hawaii.
After the mistrial, the group issued a statement saying it resents the prosecutor’s “unprofessional characterization” of Deedy as a “bully with a badge.”
“In fact, the prosecutor’s courtroom antics made clear who the real bully is in this case,” the statement said.
The group said Deedy “performed heroically and is innocent of the charges he faced.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” Kaneshiro said. “This office is not driven by political pressure. We’re driven by what is the evidence and what is justice.”
Kaneshiro said his office will retry the case and cited state Supreme Court rulings to dispel notions that the hung jury in the Deedy case would lead to a dismissal of the murder charge. He said in the 1980s, he was able to obtain a murder conviction in a third trial after the defendant’s first two trials ended in a hung jury.
Kaneshiro said he was at the McDonald’s shooting scene and after watching the video, approved charging Deedy with second-degree murder.
He said no one in the federal government tried to influence the way his office handled the case.
Kaneshiro said he didn’t handle the case himself because Futa is an “excellent trial attorney” who did “an excellent job.”
He said she will retry the case.
