Michael Vick’s State Charges - Another Reason to Fire his Lawyers?

Posted on November 27, 2007
Filed Under Major Developments |

Michael Vick has not been sentenced in Federal Court yet and was not tried for dog fighting in Federal Court either.  His lawyers rush to negotiate a sweet heart of a deal in a plea bargain with the feds, created a nasty loophole that left Michael Vick wide open to face Virginia Commonwealth prosecution for other crimes that he committed.

Overall Michael Vick seems to have broken a lot of laws.  Some of those were Federal and some were State and some might even have been broken in other states like Georgia and North Carolina.

Normally, when a person faces multi state charges like this and federal charges, the different jurisdictions eventually figure out how to consolidate things to keep the system from being over burdened with lots of court cases.  In the case of multiple states, the states sometimes work to figure out which state gets to prosecute for crimes first.

Here however, the rush to a plea deal and the actual crime that Vick admitted to in the plea deal, seems to have opened up Vick for additional legal jeopardy.  If he had actually been tried for the additional crimes the feds originally worked towards, Vick might have a better double jeopardy defense in Virginia.  However, the case never went to trial and he ultimately plead guilty to a lesser charge.

So that left Virginia open to try him for those other crimes that do not exist on the books for the feds.  He will face those charges next April (April Second, so he will avoid the April Fools day defense as well). 

So for Michael Vick, one of the questions he will have to ask himself as he sits in jail awaiting sentencing, is did my lawyers get me a good deal or open me up for twice the jail time that I might have received?

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