Vick indicted by the feds

[mason55]

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If Vick was suspended a year and then was found not guilty, he would have a pretty good lawsuit.

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I'm almost 100% sure that he wouldn't have a very good lawsuit at all. I haven't read the NFL CBA but I'm pretty sure that, as tuq et. al stated earlier in the thread there's a personal conduct clause.

"Conduct detrimental to the team" and all that jazz.

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So let's say it turns out he had bought a house for his Aunt, Uncle and cousins when he got his first contract. Never goes back to the house. Maybe for a cousin's birthday party or something, but not very often.

Cousins set up large dog fighting ring. Vick has no idea. To save their own asses his cousins claim Vick knew. This all comes out in court, Vick is exonerated. Where was the "Conduct detrimental to the team?"

*note: I am not saying any of this is true, just saying look at the Duke thing.

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I'm not going to even attempt to talk out of my ass here by speculating, other than I'm pretty sure that the NFL will come up with a pretty airtight way to suspend if that's what they so choose.

I don't know if it was earlier in this thread or on one sports talk shows that's been on all day, but someone said that they NFL is operating outside the federal prosecutors and if they feel that there is enough evidence to suspend Vick they will do so. That's their prerogative, even if he's found not guilty.

[Sluss]

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I'm not going to even attempt to talk out of my ass here by speculating, other than I'm pretty sure that the NFL will come up with a pretty airtight way to suspend if that's what they so choose.

I don't know if it was earlier in this thread or on one sports talk shows that's been on all day, but someone said that they NFL is operating outside the federal prosecutors and if they feel that there is enough evidence to suspend Vick they will do so. That's their prerogative, even if he's found not guilty.

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I think I'm a little caught up in my original argument that I don't like this policy. Paul Tagliabue (sp?) avoided a policy like this because he was a lawyer and believed in due process. He never even suspended Rae Carueth and he is a convicted murderer. I'm pretty sure that the NFL is smart enough and has smart enough lawyers that they should be able to make this pretty airtight. I just won't be suprised if you don't see any action taken on this by the league, but by the Falcons instead. And even them more because of the impact on their advertising dollars.

[mason55]

Ok... they just said this on PTI:


If you refuse or fail to report to training camp for ANY REASON they can void your contract.

Since Vick is going to miss the first day of training camp due to his arraignment then under the CBA the Falcons are within their right to void his contract (assuming he doesn't get his arraignment rescheduled).

[adios]

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What jumps out at me from the indictment is that it not only involves dog fighting but "a business enterprise involving gambling". I wonder if that might be an even bigger problem for him vis-a-vis the NFL.

Also ... he's named as "Michael Vick a/k/a 'Ookie'".

OK, Ookie.

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Probably someone mentioned this but if not, one of the motivations for having the dog fights is to bet on the outcome. The betting action was going down at Ookie's pad with his possible consent and full knowledge. Dude's really, really in trouble with this one on more than one front.

[RyanUSF]

I saw Joe Theisman and Paul McGuire today for the first time in a long time, apparently they both finally removed themselves and their heads from Michael Vick's ass.

[Spellmen]

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If Vick was suspended a year and then was found not guilty, he would have a pretty good lawsuit.

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I'm almost 100% sure that he wouldn't have a very good lawsuit at all. I haven't read the NFL CBA but I'm pretty sure that, as tuq et. al stated earlier in the thread there's a personal conduct clause.

"Conduct detrimental to the team" and all that jazz.

[/ QUOTE ]

So let's say it turns out he had bought a house for his Aunt, Uncle and cousins when he got his first contract. Never goes back to the house. Maybe for a cousin's birthday party or something, but not very often.

Cousins set up large dog fighting ring. Vick has no idea. To save their own asses his cousins claim Vick knew. This all comes out in court, Vick is exonerated. Where was the "Conduct detrimental to the team?"

*note: I am not saying any of this is true, just saying look at the Duke thing.

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I see where you are going with this, but it was his property, so ultimately he is responsible. So even if he had no knowledge about the fights I would think he would be accountable somehow, though it obviously wouldn't carry charges as heavy.

[Needle77]

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If Vick was suspended a year and then was found not guilty, he would have a pretty good lawsuit.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm almost 100% sure that he wouldn't have a very good lawsuit at all. I haven't read the NFL CBA but I'm pretty sure that, as tuq et. al stated earlier in the thread there's a personal conduct clause.

"Conduct detrimental to the team" and all that jazz.

[/ QUOTE ]

So let's say it turns out he had bought a house for his Aunt, Uncle and cousins when he got his first contract. Never goes back to the house. Maybe for a cousin's birthday party or something, but not very often.

Cousins set up large dog fighting ring. Vick has no idea. To save their own asses his cousins claim Vick knew. This all comes out in court, Vick is exonerated. Where was the "Conduct detrimental to the team?"

*note: I am not saying any of this is true, just saying look at the Duke thing.

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I see where you are going with this, but it was his property, so ultimately he is responsible. So even if he had no knowledge about the fights I would think he would be accountable somehow, though it obviously wouldn't carry charges as heavy.

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Isn't that kind of like when you were in high school and the party is at a friends house because his parents are out of town. Then the cops come and bust the place, aren't the parents the ones that are to blame?

[vhawk01]

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He has set a precedent with the 1-year suspension of Adam Jones, who, dare I say, isn't standing in nearly as deep of water as Ron "Ookie" Mexico, aka Mike Vick.

If a punishment is levied, I'd expect it to be more than a year. Even Pacman Jones can "come back" from waving gats at strip clubs at 3am and spitting in womens' faces or whatever. But torturing animals is bad stuff. I'm not certain, but I've heard that many, if not most, mass-murderers began as animal-torturers. This is an instance where I think you put out the fire in its incipient stage.

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LOL. Most serial killers tortured animals != most who torture animals are serial killers, but I guess we'd need to check and see if Vick wets his bed to be 100% sure.

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That's not exactly what I was intending to mean, and I don't even know if most serial killers did torture animals.

But yeah, anyway, when dealing with animal-torturers (especially adults), better to err on the side of caution.

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Well, man, if most serial killers DIDN'T torture animals than Vick is even LESS likely to be a serial killer, now that he has tortured some animals right?

You should probably stop this.

[vhawk01]

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He has set a precedent with the 1-year suspension of Adam Jones, who, dare I say, isn't standing in nearly as deep of water as Ron "Ookie" Mexico, aka Mike Vick.

If a punishment is levied, I'd expect it to be more than a year. Even Pacman Jones can "come back" from waving gats at strip clubs at 3am and spitting in womens' faces or whatever. But torturing animals is bad stuff. I'm not certain, but I've heard that many, if not most, mass-murderers began as animal-torturers. This is an instance where I think you put out the fire in its incipient stage.

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LOL. Most serial killers tortured animals != most who torture animals are serial killers, but I guess we'd need to check and see if Vick wets his bed to be 100% sure.

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That's not exactly what I was intending to mean, and I don't even know if most serial killers did torture animals.

But yeah, anyway, when dealing with animal-torturers (especially adults), better to err on the side of caution.

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Another good point about erring on the side of caution. I mean, white males are more likely to molest kids than non-(white males) so we probably shouldn't let any of them near children. Best err on the side of caution.

[suzzer99]

I seriously want to know why they killed these dogs in different cruel ways. Were they laughing while they did it? If so that seems like something a couple really sick twisted teenage wannabe satan worshippers would do. It doesn't make sense for grown men. Were they mad at the dogs for underperforming? Trying to teach the other dogs a lesson?

I've read some of these dogfighting sites and kind of understand the macho mentality of these guys and the complete disregard for a random animal's life or suffering (these guys love their prized dogs like their children).

I mean even 100 years ago this attitude might have been the majority, and still is today in a lot of countries. Some Koreans do absolutely awful things to dogs, while they're still alive, to tenderize them before eating them. Having an entire culture that values an animal's pain is a relatively new phenomenon to the human race. Until very recently most human's were just happy to make it through the day without getting eaten.

So I can understand why they would want to put down some underperforming dogs. But torturing animals for sport just doesn't seem the MO. I bet even most of the dogfight community will look down on that.

(Obviously I'm not defending any of this, just trying to understand the mindset.)