So now that the hubbub has died down and everyone’s heard the stories, let’s break down and compare these jail sentences.

Plaxico Burress

The Incident: Plaxico Burress, wide receiver formerly of the New York Giants, took a unlicensed pistol, tucked into his pants, into a New York nightclub. The gun accidentally discharged, hitting Burress in the right thigh.

The Punishment: Two years in prison, and an additional two years of supervised release.

The Breakdown: Plaxico Burress is lucky he only shot himself. But other than that, life isn’t good.

Burress was indicted on two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and a single count of reckless endangerment in the second degree. The former two are class C felonies, which carry a minimum of a year in prison, with a maximum of 5 1/2 years. The latter is a class A misdemeanor, and has a maximum one year jail sentence.

Knowing that, it’s easy to see that Burress got a fairly light sentence compared to the maximum. Note that the charges are not related to Burress shooting himself, or even to the fact that the gun fired. New York just has steep gun laws, and that’s where Burress got nailed.

Burress lives in New Jersey to be close to the Giants’ facilities. The state of New York, however, does not issue handgun licenses to non-residents, so Burress would have been unable to secure a license to carry the gun anywhere in the state.

Even if he was licensed, the gun still should have been holstered; and he should not have been drinking while carrying it. Gun laws are strict because carrying a handgun can be supremely dangerous to other people, and if Burress’s stray bullet had hit someone other than himself we’d be having a very different conversation.

Solution? Don’t carry a gun. But maybe that’s making things too easy.

Donte’ Stallworth

The Incident: Donte’ Stallworth, wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, hit and killed 59-year-old Mario Reyes with his Bentley at 7:15 am one morning in Miami. Stallworth was intoxicated well above Florida’s legal limit: his blood-alcohol content was .126, and Florida’s limit is .08. Reyes reportedly ran into traffic on the 4-lane highway while trying to catch a bus, and was not in a crosswalk.

The Punishment: 30 days in jail, two years under house arrest, eight years on probation, and he will not be allowed to hold a driver’s license again for the rest of his life.

The Breakdown: Stallworth got very, very lucky.

Under Florida law, DUI manslaughter (which Stallworth is guilty of) is a second-degree felony. It mandates a jail term of up to 15 years—with a minimum of four.

It’s a good thing he called the police, too, and didn’t leave the scene: doing so would up it to a first-degree felony, which can go up to 30 years of jail time (both under Manslaughter and Vehicular Homicide-s. 316.193 (3), F.S.).

But Stallworth played the game correctly. He stayed on the scene, called the police, and eventually plead guilty. The court accepted the plea, which allows Stallworth to only serve the 30 days in prison (along with the other stipulations). He also paid out a undisclosed-but-likely-large sum of money to Reyes’ family, in settlement of a civil suit.

But did he deserve more punishment, since his actions ended someone’s life?

The difference between Stallworth’s situation and those of Burress and Vick is the accidental nature of his act. While some will argue that drunk driving is just as dangerous as carrying a loaded gun, the law treats them very differently.

Florida places the burden of proof on the plaintiff in a DUI manslaughter case—meaning that the prosecution would have to prove that it was entirely because of Stallworth’s intoxication that he hit and killed Reyes. That’s a stretch in this case, however, as the defense could make a reasonable case that Reyes simply ran into traffic and could have gotten hit by anyone, intoxicated or not.

That all said, the non-jail portions of the punishment are often overlooked. Donte’ Stallworth will never have a driver’s license again—and that seems like an appropriate repercussion for the incident.

Whew. I made it through all of that without asking why Stallworth was drunk at 7:00 in the morning.

Michael Vick

The Incident: For six years, now-Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick financed an operated a multi-state dogfighting operation which included both dog fights and executions, and thousands of dollars-worth of gambling on the fights.

The Punishment: 23 months in federal prison, and paying over $928,000 to care for the dogs seized from the property. He was also sentenced to three years incarceration and a $2,500 fine by the state of Virginia, which was suspended on the terms that he pay the court costs and serve four years probation.

The Breakdown: Michael Vick is old news by now, but it’s popular to gripe about how Stallworth’s sentence was shorter than Vick’s, when Vick only affected dogs and Stallworth killed a human being. Here’s why that’s the case.

The Virginia state dogfighting law carries a maximum 5-year prison term, with a $2,500 fine. He was sentenced to 3 years, though it was suspended—likely because he served the federal term.

It becomes federal jurisdiction, then, because it crossed state lines (the ring also included North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maryland). Under a law established in 1976 specifically covering animal fighting and transporting animals across state lines for fighting, Vick faced up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

The real problem, though, was that the amount of time that the dogfighting ring had been around made it subject to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)—a law that calls for larger penalties for organized crime, initially put in place to prosecute Mafia members.

Vick eventually pled guilty to “Conspiracy to Travel in Interstate Commerce in Aid of Unlawful Activities and to Sponsor a Dog in an Animal Fighting Venture”—yep, there’s a law called that.

Vick’s 23-month prison sentence was actually longer than the 12-18 month term recommended by the prosecution, and was noted by legal experts to be unexpectedly harsh. His two partners in the crime received sentences of 18 and 21 months, with Vick’s being longer because his involvement was deeper.

The reason that Michael Vick’s sentence is so much longer than Donte’ Stallworth’s is because, as the judge noted, Vick’s actions were “not a momentary lack of judgment”. They were premeditated, lengthy, and extensive—three things that Stallworth’s act was not.

Ultimately, it seems that none of the three guilty parties got preferential celebrity treatment—arguably the closest is Stallworth, and he’s the least celebrity of the three—and each got a punishment appropriate to the laws that were broken.

And ideally, now that there is an even stronger precedent of legal punishment for professional athletes behaving badly, we’ll see a greater motivation for players to clean up their act.

It has nothing to do with what offensive schemes can accomodate him, what coaches covet his talents, or what teams have needs at quarterback.

It has everything to do with image.

There are plenty of NFL head coaches that could use Vick’s talents, but it’s the General Manager’s decision. And in a situation as precarious as this, any GM has to consider everyone involved.

How would signing Vick affect the other players on the team? The coaches? The fans? Anyone who holds a stake, financially or emotionally, in the franchise?

And finally, will his wife let him come home at night, after signing someone who went to jail for a crime against puppies?

It’s unlikely that Michael Vick will be a starting quarterback anywhere in the NFL, perhaps ever again. While he did lead Atlanta to the playoffs, he was never an accurate passer, and the Hawks always struggled with maximizing the effect of Vick’s abilities.

Instead, with the rise of the Wildcat offense the NFL finally has a place for Michael Vick. The Wildcat’s novelty will wear off soon, but the advantages of a single-wing offense don’t go away—if the ball is snapped directly to the ball-carrier, then there’s one extra blocker since the quarterback isn’t on the field.

Look for Vick to get some touches with the feel of an old-school option—run if the running’s good, or air it out deep if the defense cheats the coverage to protect the run.

But wherever he goes, controversy (at least for a time) will likely follow. Each NFL team is a business, literally a franchise—and controversy this incendiary can damage a brand in a way that takes a long time to rebuild.

That’s a good reason why the Oakland Raiders, an oft-recurring name in the Vick sweepstakes, could be such a good fit. Besides Al Davis’s well-known lust for speed on his roster, the Raiders’ image is already unpopular with protective moms across the country. It’s hard to imagine that adding Vick to their already-thuggish appearance could harm their brand in any appreciable way.

The New England Patriots are another potential Vick suitor that have been bandied about, and the opposite is true for them. It’s thought that if Bill Belichick reined in Randy Moss—who has been conspicuously well-behaved for years—then he can mentor Michael Vick to the point that he humbles a bit and re-enters the real world, where the rest of us live.

For any other franchise, the risks could just be too great. Could they see a drop in ticket sales? Protests outside the stadium before big games?

Or would selling a whole crop of #7 jerseys make up for losses anywhere else?

It seems just as likely that no truly sour consequences will come to the franchise. Athletes get in legal trouble with striking regularity, and generally without repercussions for the team.

It’s hard to remember now that Kobe Bryant had a legal spat in Colorado. Allen Iverson had served time in jail. Nobody seemed to mind the Dallas Cowboys picking up Tank Johnson after his legal troubles, and the Cleveland Browns don’t seem worried about kickback from Donte’ Stallworth’s brush with the law—in which he killed a man.

But for most NFL teams, the risk is just too big to take. Rejection by their fan community can take years to repair, and most GM’s don’t want to gamble with the image of their team by signing Michael Vick.

Even if their wife would let them.

Roger Pimentel