Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm today announced he will not proceed with further prosecution of Christopher Deedy, the federal agent accused of fatally shooting a man at a Waikiki fast-food restaurant 10 years ago.

“I have made this decision carefully after much thought,” Alm said during a news conference this morning. “I drew on my 17 years as a prosecutor, but probably even more importantly my 15 years as a circuit court judge. It wasn’t an easy decision, but the job of the prosecutor’s office is to do justice, not win cases.”

Alm also noted the Deedy case, which started 10 years ago as a murder case, had already resulted in two hung juries.

The first trial in 2013 ended with jurors deadlocked, 8-4, in favor of finding Deedy not guilty of murder.

The second trial in 2014 also ended with jurors deadlocked, 7-5, in favor of finding Deedy not guilty of manslaughter.

Deedy had been facing a third trial after former county Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro said in 2018 that he would appeal a ruling ordering him not to do so.

In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case over whether Deedy should face a third trial, meaning prosecutors could not pursue a manslaughter charge against him, but could pursue a trial for first-degree assault instead.

Alm said with two juries considering the case — the first deliberating for more than five-and-a-half days and the second for six-and-half days — shows “this wasn’t a rush to judgment” and that jurors “took their time and they thought it through.”

Additionally, Alm said evidence presented at both the first and second trials was virtually the same, and he did not expect any new evidence would be presented at a third trial.

“Trying a third time to get all 12 jurors to convict unanimously with a different jury is unlikely to result in a different outcome,” he said.

Deedy was in Hawaii on Nov. 5, 2011 as a U.S. State Department special agent assigned to provide security at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. He was off-duty when he got into an altercation inside a Waikiki McDonald’s, where he fatally shot Kollin Elderts, a Windward Oahu resident.

Deedy, at the time, argued he had properly identified himself as a federal agent, was not drunk and acted in self-­defense.

The prosecution challenged those assertions.