Parents of Slain Japanese Youth Win Damages

A home owner was ordered Thursday to pay $653,000 to the parents of a Japanese exchange student who was shot to death in 1992 when he went to the wrong door while looking for a Halloween party.

State District Judge Bill Brown rejected Rodney Peairs’ explanation that he thought 16-year-old Yoshihiro Hattori was a lunatic bent on hurting him and his family.

“There is no justification that the killing was necessary to save himself or his family,” Brown ruled in a lawsuit filed by the boy’s parents.

Peairs, 32, was acquitted last year of manslaughter in the slaying, which reinforced the United States’ image in Japan as a land of gunslingers.

Masaichi and Mieko Hattori, who had asked for as much as $850,000, plan to give the money to a foundation they established in their son’s name to foster understanding between the United States and Japan.

“Although the verdict was in our favor, the hole in my heart will always be there forever,” Mieko Hattori said. And in a plea to the American people, she said: “Please decrease the number of handguns as much as possible.”

Hattori was shot after he and the son of his host parents got lost while looking for a Halloween party. Hattori was dressed in a John Travolta-style disco costume--a white tuxedo and an open-collar shirt.

The teen-ager, who spoke little English, didn’t stop when Peairs shouted, “Freeze!” Peairs opened fire with a .44-caliber pistol.

Peairs was ordered to pay $85,000--the maximum allowed under state law--for the youth’s pain and suffering; $275,000 each to his parents, for the wrongful death; and about $18,000 to cover funeral expenses.