Could someone explain this to me? Michael Vick admits that he murdered 6-8 dogs while participating in dog fighting. This all under oath in Federal court documents. The district attorney for Surry County, Virginia then goes to the grand jury and it hands down an indictment on Vick for only one count of killing dogs and one count of promoting dogfights. What happened to the other co-defendants who also offered testimony under oath(and accepted by the court) that they killed dogs. What more does a DA need?
The grand jury works as sort of a middle man between the prosecutor and the community itself. It is designed to stop overzealous prosecuters. The prosecutor gathers his evidence and then brings it in front of a grand jury to determine if there is probable cause. It is not the grand juries job to determine the guilt or innocence of a defendant. Finding that there is probable cause a crime has been committed is a very low burden to prove. Presenting just a copy of the signed plea bargain by Vick would have been overwhelming evidence of probable cause. In fact, it’d be enough to convict him.
It is impossible to assume that the grand jury was presented with the evidence we already know and still arrived at only a 2 count indictment - only one for killing of dogs. This DA should be fired immediately. He can not handle his job and as this has shown, can not prosecute even when a defendant admits to the crime, has 6 co-defendants agreeing with the events, and all while being under oath and in writing.
I find this all very interesting. When Michael Vick decided to plead out to federal charges last month there were no stipulations to his plea bargain that the state would agree not to press charges as well. His lawyers had to of informed him that if he admitted to dogfighting that the state of Virginia would then have a slam dunk case. Maybe Vick and his attorneys rolled the dice and assumed Pointdexter was so unbelievable incompetent that he would not be successful in obtaining an indictment.
Or there are other things going on down in Surry County, Virginia…
Technorati Tags: Crime, Current Events, Michael Vick, NFL, Law
