Federal agent Christopher Deedy is scheduled to stand trial a third time for fatally shooting Kollin Elderts in a Waikiki McDonald’s restaurant in 2011.
State Circuit Judge Karen Ahn released a schedule Friday that tentatively sets the trial for September 2015.
If Deedy wants to avoid the trial, his lawyers have until Nov. 28 to file legal papers spelling out reasons why the case should be dismissed.
The prosecutor has already said she wants a third trial.
Elderts’ family has advocated for a third trial. In a written statement released Friday, the Elderts family said watching both previous trials and seeing the video of Kollin getting killed over and over, "has been horrific, traumatizing. But what would be worse is to have Kollin’s killer be free, with no penalty and no justice."
There is no limit on the amount of times a prosecutor can take a defendant to trial as long as there is no resolution. However, legal precedent prevents the government from taking a defendant to trial over and over with the same evidence until it gets a conviction.
Deedy cannot be tried for murder because a jury in the second trial acquitted him of that charge, but he faces trial on manslaughter or assault charges.
The 30-year-old U.S. State Department special agent was in Hawaii to provide security for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit when he killed the 23-year-old Elderts in the Kuhio Avenue restaurant Nov. 5, 2011. Deedy was off duty at the time, and Elderts was shot with Deedy’s personal firearm.
He testified that he identified himself as a "cop" before firing his weapon to defend himself and a former college roommate.
The prosecutor says that Deedy was drunk, did not identify himself as a law enforcement officer and started the fight that ended in Elderts’ death.
Deedy has stood trial twice for killing Elderts.
The first trial ended last year with the jury deadlocked. Eight jurors were in favor of acquitting Deedy but four were in favor of finding him guilty of murder.
Murder was the only charge the jurors in the first trial could consider. Both the prosecution and defense opposed allowing the jury to consider manslaughter, and Ahn ruled that giving the jurors that option wasn’t warranted.
In the second trial, which ended Aug. 14, in addition to murder, Ahn gave another set of jurors the option to consider manslaughter or assault. The jurors acquitted Deedy of murder but were unable to decide whether he was guilty of any other crime for killing Elderts.
Just as in the first trial, the jurors in the second trial deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal on manslaughter or assault, said a source close to the case.
If there is a third trial, Ahn has said Deedy is eligible to face manslaughter and assault charges.
State law allows for a retrial after an acquittal as long as it is for a different charge.
Both of Deedy’s trials were among the most closely watched in the state in recent years, in large part because the parties involved were an out-of-town agent and a local man.
