Posted By:
Jeff LichtmanPaul, it was a plea bargain and in federal cases a potential sentence is reduced should the defendant accept responsibility for his actions. This includes, besides pleading guilty to a charge, also saving the prosecution time and expense. I don't disagree with such a reduction in exposure as that is in line with public policy.
As for the agreed-upon recommendation of sentence, 12-18 months, that is about right for this sort of conviction after plea (sad to say, hurting animals and gambling on it does not come with the appropriate jail exposure in my opinion). The case was rock-solid against Vick but that doesn't mean that plea bargains are not still offered. The prosecution surely considered the collateral fallout from Vick pleading guilty and the resulting plea agreement appears to reflect it. Of course, the judge can do whatever he wants in sentencing Vick which means he can ignore the agreed-upon sentencing recommendation.
If the evidence was weak my guess is there would have been a trial as Vick has bigger fish to fry than being concerned about going to jail for a year or three, i.e., an NFL career and all the cash that comes with it. And if the evidence was weak the offer would have been a hell of a lot less than 12-18 months. I've been involved in weak federal cases in which a plea offer of 4 years was made on a murder case. That's a weak-case offer, not the one here.
Edited to address Barry's remark: in my opinion, Vick is done with the NFL. He'll be in jail the entire 08 season and only then will any suspension go into real effect, which will surely be at least a year or two at the very least. By then he will be at the very least damaged goods athletically. Regardless, he is the face of boorish, violent behavior in the NFL and the one thing we can all agree upon (except the NAACP and Stephon Marbury apparently) is that hurting animals is bad for a team's image, especially a team's leader. He'll have to figure out a way to get by on the tens of millions he already made. Sniff, sniff.