YANAL

I’m getting very tired of people — largely ignorant citizens interviewed on TV or radio, or idiots posting in online forums, but also some members of the so-called media — claiming that Michael Vick should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

He is being treated as innocent until proven guilty. That’s why he’s not in jail right now.

Whether Nike and Reebok choose to suspend endorsement deals and pull his merchandise from their store shelves, or whether the commissioner of the NFL chooses to tell Vick to stay the hell away from a league that is already fighting for its public image due to many other off-field incidents of a similar nature has nothing whatsoever to do with the American legal doctrine of “innocent until proven guilty”.

The same argument was put forth several months ago when Adam “Pacman” Jones of the Tennessee Titans was suspended from the NFL for the 2007-8 season for his involvement with several high-profile off-field incidents, and the same counter applies now as it did then: what happens between the NFL and its players, or between Major League Baseball and its players, or between the NBA and its players (or referees) is entirely independent of the legal system unless contracts are broken and the injured party brings the case to court.

Pete Rose was banned for life from all aspects of Major League Baseball — and deservedly so — for betting on the game (a sin which Rose himself has confessed) and, in particular, betting on games in which he was directly involved as a manager (though not against the team he managed, Rose maintains). Rose has never been convicted of any crime, nor found liable in any civil suit, with regards to this heinous breach of professional ethics. But what he did was, indeed, heinously unethical, and Major League Baseball is perfectly free to hand down a punishment of its choosing without Rose being put on trial in front of a judge and jury.

Similarly, Pacman Jones and Michael Vick may not be criminally or civilly liable for the transgressions of which they stand formally accused, but for them to be associated with such riffraff reflects poorly on the National Football League and the sport of football in general.

The NFL has no legal mandate to convene a jury and hold a trial in order to punish a player. If you hang out with thugs and your thug friends get you into trouble, and your conduct reflects poorly on your employer — keep in mind that playing a game once a week for five months is the employment for which these men are paid millions upon millions of dollars each year — you should not be the least bit surprised if your employer disciplines you accordingly.

No one put up a fuss when Lisa Nowak was fired from NASA for conduct grossly unbecoming to a scientist, astronaut, and naval officer. Disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy resigned before the allegations of match-fixing surfaced, but would anyone honestly argue that, had Donaghy not resigned, he should not have been fired until found guilty in a court of law? I don’t see a whole lot of people feeling sorry for Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or Paris Hilton (although I don’t see a lot of Hollywood types blackballing them either). So why is Michael Vick any different?

You do not have the right to a job in the United States (with California being the singular exception to the general rule of at-will employment), and you should not be the least bit surprised that your conduct outside of work, so disgraceful that you make national headlines for days on end, gets you fired — or at least suspended — from your job. And thank goodness that job is not “lawyer”.

posted by Chris on 27 July 2007 at 1949 in sports

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