VICK TO PLEAD GUILTY TO STATE DOGFIGHTING CHARGES

Falcons quarterback Mike Vick, who is serving time after pleading guilty last year to federal conspiracy charges, reportedly will plead guilty to related charges in Virginia. Vick is expected to enter his plea on October 30 in Surry County, Virginia. He’ll participate in the hearing via videoconference. The apparent goal in pleading guilty to the state-court charges would be to secure early release from federal prison. Presumably, prosecutor Gerald Poindexter has offered Vick a deal that would not require him to serve any additional jail time. Currently, Vick is due to be released from federal custody on July 20, 2009. He’ll be eligible for residence at a halfway house as of January 20. We previously believed that Vick had a strong basis for seeking a dismissal of the charges under a peculiar Virginia law that prevents multiple prosecutions arising from the same overall set of facts. But if pleading guilty secures style points with the federal government and requires no additional incarceration in Virginia, it seems to be the smarter move. Lost in all of this is the fact that Poindexter somehow bungled potential Virginia charges based on the killing of dogs that were deemed to be unfit to fight. For reasons still not clear, a grand jury refused to indict Vick on those counts, even though he admitted to participating in the killing of dogs in the document pursuant to which his federal guilty plea was memorialized. Also, the charges arising from alleged (admitted) dog killing arguably would have been immune to attack under the Virginia “double prosecution” law, since Vick was never actually prosecuted by the feds for killing dogs, but only for conspiring to engage in interstate gambling and interstate dog fighting.