Trial begins in $ 2 million case brought by hurt Brown student

ITie $2 million civil trial against the university brought by Brown College senior Peter Marketos began Monday in the 133rd District Court of Harris County. Jury selection was concluded Monday. A panel of five men and one woman will decide the outcome of the $2 million suit, in which Marketos seeks compensation for attorney's fees, pain, mental anguish, trauma, fear, sleeplessness, confusion, stress and loss of time from school. ITiese charges stem from a confrontation between Marketos and then-Campus Police Sgt. Kenneth Nipe during Will RiceCollege'sTower Parly on Feb. 19,1993. Exactly what happened during the encounter is at the heart of the trial, but both sides agree that there was a struggle of some sort between the two. Rice claims that it was an attempt • on Marketos' part to resist arrest, and therefore Nipe was justified in using increasing force to apprehend him. Marketos' attorney, Greg Gladden, implied in statements to the court that Marketos' resistance to Nipe's actions was an attempt to prot ed an injured shoulder. Marketos claims that during the • incident his shoulder was dislocated, and that he spent over two and half hours in a Campus Police detent ion cell in that condition. He was then charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, a felony. At a subsequent examining trial, the felony complaint was dropped due to lack of probable cause. All other pending charges were dropped on Feb. 16, 1994, accordingJto legal ^documents filed by Gladden. Sid Richardson College senior J R. Smiljanic was among the witnesses called* to the stand by Gladden on Tuesday . Smil janic testified about what he saw of the incident involving Marke tos and Nipe. Smiljanic also said that he could under stand why stud e n t s did not want their names associated with negative information about Nipe's behavior during his confrontation with Marketos Marke to s took the s tand on Wednesday before his lawyer rested the plaintiffs case. Rice called Edward Kuo as its first witness Wednesday afternoon Kuo, now at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, was a '93 graduate of Rice and a WRC resident at the time of the incident. Kuo and three of his friends were standing in the stairwell near where the altercation took place. He said that immediately proceeding the incident, "Sgt. Nipe was escorting three guys down the stairs." •"They looked pretty drunk," Kuo said.