Philadelphia Inquirer
Monday, February 23, 2003

Schieber decision in jury’s hands

By Joseph A. Slobodzian,
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A federal jury this afternoon began deliberating the question of whether the City of Philadelphia bears any liability for the 1998 murder of University of Pennsylvania graduate student Shannon Schieber at the hands of confessed serial rapist Troy Graves.

The civil jury of six women and six men began deliberations shortly before 2 p.m. after a morning of closing arguments by lawyers for the city and for Schieber's parents, whose lawsuit contends a police practice of downgrading rape complaints enabled Graves to prey on women during 1997 and rape and strangle Schieber, 23, on May 7, 1998.

If the jury returns a verdict that the city is liable for violating Schieber's constitutional rights of equal treatment and due process, they will return to court for additional argument on the issue of money damages to be awarded her parents, Sylvester and Vicki Schieber, of Chevy Chase, Md.

"This brutal and senseless murder would not have occurred were it not for this pervasive and widespread practice and custom of downgrading sexual claims and treating the victims in an otherwise discriminatory manner," said David Rudovsky in his closing arguments to the jury.

The practice of downgrading sexual assault complaints, Rudovsky argued, resulted in a system in which beat officers in Center City were never told of a pattern of rapes involving young, single women living along Pine Street west of Broad Street.

Among those officers ignorant of that pattern, Rudovsky said, was one who stopped Graves near 12th and Pine Streets in Center City in the early morning of Sept. 9, 1997 - eight months before Schieber's murder - after police received a call about a prowler.

Not knowing about the rapes and with Graves having no outstanding criminal warrants, the officers let Graves walk away.

After his 2002 capture in Colorado following eight sexual assaults, Graves, 25, was convicted of attacking four Center City women in 1997, murdering Schieber on May 7, 1998 and attacking a sixth Philadelphia woman in 1999. He is now serving a life prison sentence in Colorado.

"It's all so clear now... when you've had five years to figure it out," countered Shelley R. Smith, chief deputy city solicitor, in her closing to the jury.

"Hindsight is 20/20," Smith added. "We know there were sexual assaults. We know now who the assailant was. We didn't and we couldn't have known it in 1997."