Jury Acquits Man Who Shot Japanese Youth : Crime: Panel deliberates only three hours before clearing Louisiana man in slaying of exchange student who approached his front door.

After just three hours of deliberations, a jury acquitted a man of manslaughter Sunday in the fatal shooting of a Japanese exchange student who had approached his door looking for a Halloween party.

Rodney Peairs, 31, was cleared of the sole count of manslaughter in the shooting of 16-year-old Yoshi Hattori. The trial had drawn widespread interest in Japan, where guns are rare and most shootings are gang-related.

Spectators applauded when the forewoman announced the unanimous verdict, but bailiffs quickly quieted them.

Peairs, who had faced a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, stood up for the verdict, his attorney holding him by the arm. He bounced back into his chair and wiped away tears after the verdict was read. The student’s father, Masaichi Hattori, was not in the courtroom.

Outside the courtroom, Peairs said he would no longer use guns and, in remarks intended for the slain boy’s father, said: “I’m very sorry that any of this ever happened.”

Dist. Atty. Doug Moreau said of the verdict: “If they wanted to say that we approve of what occurred, that’s a bad message. If they are saying they weren’t sure. . . .” He then shrugged and dropped the thought.

In closing arguments Sunday, defense attorney Lewis Unglesby said that the way the student was acting made it reasonable for Peairs to think his life was in danger and that he had acted in self-defense.

Moreau said he recognized that Peairs wished the shooting never happened, “but that’s not the point of what we’re doing here. Because Yoshi doesn’t get to do it again. That’s the tragedy.”

The events of last Oct. 17 were hardly disputed during three days of testimony.

Hattori, of Nagoya, and his American host were invited to a party but got lost and went to Peairs’ door because the address was similar and the house was already decorated for Halloween, which was two weeks away.

They rang the front bell twice, but Bonnie Peairs answered the garage door. Hattori came around from the front--quickly, she said--and frightened her, so she slammed the door and yelled for her husband to get his gun.

“There was no thinking involved,” Bonnie Peairs testified.

Peairs came to the door with his .44-caliber Magnum revolver. When he saw the teen, Peairs yelled “Freeze!”--maybe also “Stop!”--but Hattori kept coming. Hattori was not wearing his contact lenses and with his limited English may have misunderstood the word as “Please,” according to testimony.

When Hattori was four to eight feet away, Peairs fired, hitting him in the chest. Hattori was wearing a ruffled shirt and white tuxedo jacket like the John Travolta character in the movie “Saturday Night Fever.”