HONOLULU -- A circuit judge Thursday denied a request by former Honolulu police officer Clyde Arakawa to have his manslaughter trial moved out of Hawaii.

Arakawa (pictured, left), who will be tried for the death of Dana Ambrose, 19, in a traffic collision last October, argued to Judge Karen Ahn that he could not get a fair trial in Hawaii because of pre-trial publicity.

Prosecutors claim that Arakawa was drunk when his car collided with Ambrose's at the intersection of School Street and Pali Highway.

"We have a count of roughly 35,000 mentions of Clyde Arakawa; that's more than 10 a day," Arakawa's attorney, Michael Ostendorp, said. "If that's not a media circus and a frenzy to lynch Mr. Arakawa, I don't know what is."

Arakawa asked for the trial to be moved to Oregon, where Arakawa now lives.

Prosecutors countered by arguing that higher-profile trials, such as the Xerox killings and Dana Ireland, were able to be fairly tried in the islands.

"All of those cases had masses more publicity than this," Honolulu City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle said. "This is, compared to other cases tried at criminal courts, a minor amount of publicity even though there is a lot."

Arakawa's attorneys also asked to delay the trial, which is scheduled to begin next month, because expert witnesses that they have hired, such as accident reconstructionists, will not be available until January.

Ahn decided not to rule on the defense request to delay the trial until she sees letters from the defense experts saying why they are unavailable.