Guilty, and First!

three years is my guess

Bow wow wow, yippee yo yippee yay, Michael Vick in the mf'ing BIG HOWZE!

How do I become an AUSA??? Seriously...

Oh yeah, I hope he gets what's coming to him in Prison.

It's good to see FOX News is letting dogs, despite their iliteracy, write pieces on topics pertinent to the canine world.

Interesting choice. Worse case scenario is that he loses the trial, serves five (I think) years, and loses his professional sports career forever. Best case, he wins at trial and probably retains his career. Why plead guilty, give up the career, and hope for some leniency on the sentence? Wouldn't it make more sense to roll the dice at trial in hopes of returning to football, even if it means a few more years of jail time?

Oh well, maybe disgusting excuses for garbage think differently than human beings do.

CNN reported earlier that the deal was 18-36 months. i hope he gets the upper end of that as a reflection of the fact that he only pled b/c everyone else pled first. the only things he's sorry for are: A) getting caught; B) thinking his free-loading friends would not sell him out at the first opportunity; and (maybe) C) not pleading out first.

FOx is always giving Ann Coulter airtime; i don't see why a little canine illiteracy would give them pause.

what exactly is the difference between dogfighting and bullfighting again?

As punishment, they should put him in one of his dog pens, tie his hands behind his back and let a couple of his "pets" have at him.

12 months and 1 day. You heard it here first.

3:03 -- Not much. Both are illegal in this country.

3:03 - You know of a lot of underground bullfighting rings in America?

3:06, have you ever been within ten feet of an angry pit bull? Let him have his hands and even a knife. The Pit Bull would still rip him up. At least with his hands, there's a chance he'd survive.

Now the NFL must step up and ban this jerk for life. Conduct unbecoming. Do it!

Here's a question for those who just took the bar last month: assume the contract had a clause that it could be terminated for immoral behavior and assume that this falls in the immoral behavior contemplated by the clause, can the Atlanta Falcons sue for rescission of the contract and restitution of (1) all or some of the signing bonus and/or (2) all or some of the guaranteed contract money?

Sentence= 5yrs probation, community service, televised PSA (Now get in there and throw some touchdowns!)

I love the line from his lawyers that the decision came after consulting with his familiy over the weekend. I can just picture Mike in a deep conversation with his brother Marcus about taking responsibility for one's actions.

What is the difference between dogfighting and eating meat? Either way animals die.

Stolen from Deadspin not too long ago:

Michael Vick: Biggest killer in Virginia Tech history. Too soon?

Michael Vick's NFL career is, for all intents and purposes, over. Goodbye a $130 million contract deal and countless millions in endorsement deals. It just goes to show, you can take the gangster out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the ganster. Er..something like that. They ought to find the tallest tree in Fulton County and have a public hanging.

3:17, this doesn't answer your question, but the only part of an NFL contract that is guaranteed is the signing bonus. You can be sure the Falcons will not pay additional portions of the signing bonus if they come due while Vick is in jail or suspended. If they already paid the bonus in lump sum, which they sometimes do, you can also be sure they will take action to recover some part of it.

His offense is outrageous but should he really go to prison with intentional killers of humans? Assuming no priors probabtion is sufficient.

"As punishment, they should put him in one of his dog pens, tie his hands behind his back and let a couple of his "pets" have at him. "

Despite their vicious reputation, pit bulls (even fighting dogs) are actually insanely loyal to humans. That's why they make such good fighting dogs - they'll do anything their owner wants them to do. So, sadly, the dogs probably wouldn't avenge themselves even if they were set loose on Vick.

3:22-

The difference between dogfighting and eating meat is that dogfighting is against the law because it is cruel. The fighting itself is cruel, the conditions in which the animals are kept is cruel (to keep them mean and ready for a fight). Eating meat is not illegal. The conditions that many animals may be kept in are less than optimal, but they are not illegal. Plus, for an extra dollar, I have the option of choosing to eat an animal that is raised humanely and killed humanely. Hanging, electrocution and drowning is hardly humane and is not how the meat I eat is killed.

Big Mac - it's not the death that's the problem - it's the years of torture that precede it.

By "3:22", I meant Big Mac.

Killing dogs, while reprehensible, is illegal and gets you jail time, but killing an unborn fetus is legal.

Only in America.

Not sure what Vick's criminal sentence will be but I doubt he'll ever play in the NFL again. The NFL nevers wants to see him play again - it'd be a PR nightmare. Justified by the illegal gambling issue -- which to the NFL is worse than anything short of murdering a human being -- I think the NFL will tack on a sentence that will begin to run after any prison sentence and will all but ensure that Vick never plays again. For example, if Vick gets a 1 year prison sentence, Goodell will say a 5 year NFL ban begins when you are done with prison. If Vick is only eligible for reinstatement after a five year layoff at the age of 35-36, he will be about as useful to an NFL team as a healthy and young Ryan Leaf.

"Killing dogs, while reprehensible, is illegal and gets you jail time, but killing an unborn fetus is legal.

Only in America."

Actually, this is the case in most Developed countries. And it's not killing dogs that gets you jail time, it's fighting them. There's a big difference.

Not a realistic question -- if his attys had half a brain they'd have stipulated in the contract if the immoral clause got exercised he'd get to keep all $$ paid to date.

In fact, this was likely more of a big business point than a legal point. I can't imagine it wasn't addressed in the contract.

3:37 - The killing of the dogs is certianly what gets everyone all upset, but that's not why anyone's going to jail. Ending a dog's life is not illegal - in fact it happens all the time in vet's offices. On the other hand, I suspect if someone were to run an interstate gambling operation in which fetuses faught to the death, they'd face some serious trouble.

Consistency-

Who says our laws have to be consistent? You are permitted to drive a 1 ton killing machine by age 16 in most states, vote for the next idiot to be the president at 18, and defend your country by draft or service in the military at 18, but you can't drink legally drink a beer until you are 21. How is that consistent? Is it consistent that we can euthanize (sp?) a dog or a cat that is old or sick or just unwanted, but we can't do the same for a person who is in torturous pain and who has made a conscious decision to end his/her own life? Or is a vegetable with no hope of having any normal function on any level?

(Please do not construe this e-mail to mean I in any way agree that a ban on dog fighting is irrational in light of the legality of abortion.)

He should not go to jail. Long probationary sentence and playing on a shitty team is sufficient.

Did anyone else notice the "puppies" screensaver ad on this page?

Free Mike Vick!,
The Falcons are crappy because of Vick, not in spite of him. Sure, he looks good on the ESPN highlights breaking of a 50 yeard run but it's the 50-ish% completion percentage and balls thrown 5 yards behind a receiver on third down that would always hamstring any team he led.

As punishment, I think he should have to attend all Jets games for 2 seasons.

"The Falcons are crappy because of Vick, not in spite of him"

Pretty funny. In case you don't remember, the Falcons got the right to draft Vick because they were one of the worst teams in the league. Nobody watched a Falcons game before he got there (not even in Atlanta). If you think they don't need him, watch how much they suck this year.

The biggest losers are the Falcons fans who now must suffer the fate of watching Joey Harrington lead their offense.

3:07 - Twelve months and one day would earn Ookie good time credit, but a sentence at the high end of the applicable guidelines range seems more likely.

What's the over-under on how long before Vick gets gang-raped in prison?

Leave it to a bunch of liberal lawyer mamby pambys to make argument that what Michael Vick did really isn't so bad when compared to eating me and killing unborn babies. And lawyers wonder why the general population despises our profession (and us) to the core.

Vick will get roughly a year in prison, plus probation. He'll be isolated from the general prison population in some minimum or medium security joint I'm sure. But make no mistake, his NFL career is over. The Atlanta Falcons will cut him regardless the official suspension handed down by Roger Goodell and the NFL. And you watch, Arthur Blank and the Falcons will sue Vick to recover a portion of the big signing bonus attached to his $130 million contract deal. Vick is done. Maybe he finds some shelp to help him write a "tell all" book and earns a little coin from that. But that's it.

4:33 is very mean. Not to mention incoherent.

Will his sentence preclude him from writing a "how to" book on dog fighting?

I hope Mike and Marcus like pumping gas and/or slanging rocks back in Hampton... what do you expect from a bunch thug-ass, Hokies

I like when 4:33 references "eating me and killing unborn babies." He either meant "meat" or I missed the cannibalism thread.

The saga of Michael Vick does one thing gone largely undiscussed in the media or otherwise. And that is that it perpetuates nasty and unfortunate stereotypes of black males in this country. This episode is setting back race relations in this country a way more than the OJ Simpson trial.

What's with all the predictions that this piece of crap will have it bad in jail? Not to stereotype prison inmates, but I would imagine they are disproportionately involved in or sympathetic to dog fighting.

Punishment is going to be making him play on the Lions.

3:19, I spit out my coffee when I envisioned the Vick brothers having a heart to heart about plea bargaining. It must have been a real role reversal, the older brother learning from the more experienced younger brother.

4:53:

Why does this have to be about race? I do not hear many people making it as such, the main stream media is basically labeling him as a nasty football player. He just happens to be black. And a thug.. oops.

3:24 and 3:34, the reason many vegetarians do not eat meat is similarly not because of the death itself (many agree that humans are biologically predisposed to be omnivores), but because of the torture-like treatment to which the animals are exposed prior to the death. Spend 3 minutes on the internets and you'll see that the cow that made it into your McDonald's hamburger was treated *at least* as poorly as Mike Vick's dogs. If you're going to make a moral distinction, it has to be that dogs are different because (in America) people's only interaction with them is as pets, not as means to ends (like food).

Moral: In order to be unambiguously morally okay, Mike Vick's next dogfighting ring should be in Canton.

"Despite their vicious reputation, pit bulls (even fighting dogs) are actually insanely loyal to humans. That's why they make such good fighting dogs - they'll do anything their owner wants them to do. So, sadly, the dogs probably wouldn't avenge themselves even if they were set loose on Vick."

yep...their human is their human, no matter what. sadly, the ones he didn't kill would probably fall all over themselves with happiness if they saw him again.

Hopefully a few of his fellow inmates will introduce him to the "rapestand" he so generously introduced to countless puppies. Good luck ookie... you piece of shit.

addendum: like 3:24, I personally only eat free-range organic meat that comes from (relatively) humanely treated animals. But that's irrelevant to Big Mac's rhetorical point. It is not illegal, or even thought by the majority to be morally questionable, to eat the 95% of American meat that comes from animals who lived their lives in torture-like conditions, eating food they are not adapted to properly digest, crammed on top of each other 24-7 in pens, having (in the case of chickens) their wings and beaks clipped, etc.

Just another mo-fo niga havin' to adapt to the white man's rules for society. There is acceptance for dog fightin (and cock fightin) in the black community. Always has been. But the white man has a problem with that. The white man sooner treat a dog better than a brother. How said is that? My boy Michael is being persecuted for dog fightin? That's fucked up. White dude on a team can beat up his wife and have a DUI accident where he kills people, but in white man society its forgive and forget for that stuff.

5:45: easily the most racist post I've ever seen on this site. I don't think you quite nailed the "black voice." You will, however, get this thread closed. Thanks.

What's the chance he'll be taken in the deuce chute while in prison?

Gordo, that was easily the most flat-footed impression of an African-American I've ever encountered. Rudy Giuliani did a better impersonation of a female than your attempt to be, in your words, a "brother."

Michael Vick stole my typewriter and sold it to Jim Rybicki for a promise of leniency!

[due to restrictions on typewriters this comment was handwritten]

Michael Vick gave me Herpes.

Michael Vick knocked up 17 of my nappy headed hos.

Michael Vick will be a popular man in prison...know that.

Gordo:

You suck.

This negro outlaw needs to be viciously whipped in public.

Please, you little wussy boy wankers in biglaw, Vick will be treated like a god in prison. Best stay where you are. You'd be eaten alive in the real world.

Mike Vick's gonna toss my salad.

Michael Vick will be a celebrity in prison. His life will be better in prison than it will be when he gets out after a token one year sentence. His NFL career and his money is gone. Completely.