A bartender who served State Department special agent Christopher Deedy before the agent shot a man to death in 2011 said he was "calm, collected, soft-spoken," adding, "His speech was clear."

Deedy, 30, who fatally shot 23-year-old Kollin Elderts in the Kuhio Avenue McDonald’s restaurant Nov. 5, 2011, opened his defense Wednesday against state murder and firearm charges after prosecutors rested their case.

His first witness was Eric Hoffman, a bartender at Coconut Willy’s at Beachwalk in Waikiki. The Lewers Street bar was the last watering hole for Deedy and two friends before they went to McDonald’s.

Hoffman said he remembers Deedy because he was unlike the bar’s typical patron, who is younger and often military. He said Deedy also stood out because he was one of the more sober ones in the crowd.

He said he served Deedy and his party two rounds of drinks and that another employee served them one round.

Prosecutors had previously shown the jury a bar tab Deedy paid at Coconut Willy’s for $62.75.

Deedy’s friend Adam Gutowski, 30, testified Wednesday that the tab covered the drinks for him, his girlfriend Jessica West, her two friends and Deedy.

Gutowski said that even before he, West and Deedy arrived at McDonald’s, he was "feeling buzzed" from his night of drinking. But he said Deedy was "sober, in control."

He said he didn’t know Deedy was interacting with anyone else in the restaurant until he and West had already walked out and noticed that Deedy wasn’t with them. When he went back into the restaurant he said he saw his college friend standing and leaning over the table where Elderts was sitting.

Gutowski said he could see that Elderts was irritated with Deedy, then when Elderts stood up, saw him go from irritated to angry. Meanwhile, he said, Deedy was cool and composed.

When he saw that Elderts was starting to show aggression, Gutowski said he moved toward Elderts with his open hands in front of him to block Elderts from going after Deedy. That’s when Elderts punched him in the head, knocking him to the ground, he said.

Gutowski said the punch dazed him and that he does not remember much of what happened next, except that after he fell backward, Elderts’ friend Shane Medeiros was on top of him, beating him, while he was trying to get to his feet to get away.

He said he remembers that another patron helped him push Medeiros out of the restaurant. He is scheduled to continue his testimony Thursday.

This is Deedy’s second trial. The first, last year, ended in a hung jury.

Prosecutors told the jury in opening statements that Deedy was drunk, didn’t identify himself as a law enforcement officer and started the fight that ended with the death of Elderts.

The state’s last witness Wednesday was Alexander Byrd, a former Kaneohe Marine who said he tried at different times to talk Medeiros and Elderts out of fighting Deedy. He is one of two witnesses who said he heard Deedy threaten to shoot Elderts.

The other witness was Medeiros.

Byrd, Medeiros and the other state witnesses who were in the restaurant at the time of the shooting testified that they did not hear or see Deedy identify himself as a law enforcement officer before he shot Elderts. However, under cross-examination, all of them admitted, and restaurant security video shows, that they did not watch the entire interaction between Elderts and Deedy before the shooting.

Retired Honolulu police officer Ted Coons, who was the lead detective on the case, testified that in his report of the incident, his partner, Detective Peter Boyle, had written that Deedy showed his badge before the shooting.

Most of the state witnesses who saw Deedy in the restaurant before and after the shooting, including a restaurant cashier, other patrons and police officers, testified that Deedy appeared drunk, that his eyes were glassy, he was unsteady on his feet and was slurring his speech. The police officers also said they smelled alcohol on Deedy’s breath.

An emergency room physician at the Queen’s Medical Center testified that he did not see any signs from Deedy to suggest that the special agent was drunk when he examined him for injuries more than an hour after the shooting. The doctor said he didn’t see any signs to suggest that Gutowski was drunk, either.