City Prosecutor Steve Alm has made the call: case closed against Christopher Deedy.

The State Department federal agent has already been tried twice in the 2011 death of Kollin Elderts. Alm has made the difficult but reasonable decision that there would be little upside to a third trial.

Deedy was in Honolulu as part of the security contingent for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. He was off duty and bar-hopping with friends, but carrying his gun, when he tangled with Elderts at a McDonald’s in Waikiki. Deedy shot Elderts, who bled to death from a gunshot to his chest, fired from 2 to 3 inches away, according to a pathologist’s testimony.

Deedy claimed self-defense, that he was protecting himself and others from a threatening Elderts, who was later found to have evidence of drugs and alcohol in his system. Witnesses and McDonald’s surveillance video indicated aggressiveness on both sides, although prosecutors maintained that Deedy was drunk and inexperienced, and that he escalated the situation to the point of ultimate violence.

A 2013 murder trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial. In a second trial a year later, the jury acquitted Deedy of murder, but deadlocked again, this time on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Former City Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro was intent on a third trial. After a sequence of hearings in district and appellate courts, prosecutors got the go-ahead to retry Deedy for assault, but not manslaughter. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court, in refusing to hear the case, left that status intact.

But a new city prosecutor, Alm, has decided not to proceed, putting all criminal proceedings to rest.

In making the announcement Monday, Alm said, “the job of the prosecutor’s office is to do justice, not win cases.”

And that sums it up. Prosecutors don’t get to keep trying until the verdict goes their way.

They tried twice and couldn’t convince either jury that Deedy acted “intentionally or knowingly,” required for a murder conviction, nor that he “recklessly caused the death of another,” which would have made it manslaughter.

A new jury would have been presented with the same set of facts, same testimony, same surveillance video. To prove felony assault would have meant, again, showing an intent to cause physical harm. The maximum penalty is 10 years in prison. The evidence was not enough, Alm said, to go back to court and expect a different outcome, even on the lesser charge.

A spokesperson for the Justice for Kollin Elderts Coalition said it is possible that a jury today would have supported an assault conviction, given the way that public sentiment has evolved since the advent of Black Lives Matter in 2020 and revelations of law-enforcement bias against people of color. Deedy had put himself forth as an officer of the law, when actually he was “drunk with a gun,” the coalition said.

The story is not really over. Civil proceedings against Deedy remain possible. Elderts’ supporters have also pushed for a “Kollin Elderts Law” that would bar public servants from carrying a firearm while drinking. Such legislation would provide an important venue for a debate on the responsibilities of off-duty law-enforcement officers, and how officers might best be prepared to de-escalate situations that could so easily turn as horrifying as this one did.

Alm made the justifiable decision not to go forward, but there is no winner in this case. Deedy has not been exonerated. The Elderts family is disappointed, to say the least.

Many in the larger community may feel that the case has been left hanging. And it’s true, justice is not always satisfying.