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Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm on Monday announced he will not proceed with further prosecution of Christopher Deedy, the federal agent who fatally shot 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 Monday 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 ended with jurors finding Deedy not guilty of murder, but deadlocked 7-5 in favor of finding him not guilty of manslaughter.
What followed was a drawn-out battle in a succession of courts over whether Deedy could face a third trial.
In 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled that Deedy did not have to face a third trial for manslaughter, which former county Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro said he would appeal. In 2019, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Deedy could not be retried in state court for manslaughter but could be retried for assault.
In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case from prosecutors on whether Deedy should face a third trial, meaning they could not pursue a manslaughter charge against him. Prosecutors at the time said the state would continue to pursue a trial for first-degree assault.
Alm said the two juries in 2013 and 2014 considered the case — with the first deliberating for more than 5-1/2 days and the second for 6-1/2 days — showing that “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, including witnesses and surveillance footage, 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 summit. He was off duty when he got into an altercation inside a McDonald’s on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki, where he fatally shot Kollin Elderts of Kailua, who was 23 years old at the time.
Deedy, who is from Arlington, Va., and was 27 at the time, argued that he had properly identified himself as a federal agent, was not drunk and acted in self-defense.
The prosecution challenged those assertions.
Alms said he had spoken with Elderts’ family and they were unhappy with the outcome because they were hoping there would be another trial.
A public Facebook group page, “Justice for Kollin Elderts” said Deedy entered the McDonald’s after a night of bar hopping, and was observed ordering at least five drinks, but that he refused to take a blood alcohol test upon his arrest by police. Elderts, a kanaka maoli, or Native Hawaiian, was unarmed, according to the group’s description.
“As parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, children, and friends we believe that if anyone is to carry a gun among us, that he or she must stand down when their judgement is impaired by substances like alcohol,” the group said on its page, saying Deedy should not be allowed to use his profession as a shield for his actions.
“We are extremely disappointed by this decision,” said Kalamaokaaina Niheu of the Justice for Kollin Elderts Coalition in a statement. “We believe that an assault conviction would have been possible in this new era in which the murder of George Floyd and the efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement helped reveal a consistent pattern of law enforcement brutality and a belief that they could kill people of color with impunity. Agent Christopher Deedy stated he acted as an officer of the law, when he really was drunk with a gun. This is a terrible miscarriage of justice and the family is very upset and so should we all. A killer is walking free.”
Thomas Otake, Deedy’s attorney, also issued a statement in response to Alm’s decision. Deedy’s attorneys had argued that a third trial would violate the double jeopardy clause under the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits being prosecuted twice for the same crime.
“We want to thank Mr. Alm for making the right decision,” Otake wrote. “He is trying to bring integrity and ethics back to the prosecutors office, and this was a huge step in the right direction. After all, regardless of how anyone feels about the facts, it is unfair to try someone time and time again until you get the result you want.”
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