By: Lynn DeRocco

Michael Vick signed a two year contract worth up to $5.2 million with the Philedelphia Eagles in August of 2009.

John Goodwin, the manager of animal fighting issues for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), shares his organization’s stance on Michael Vick’s return to the NFL, and the issues that go beyond the offensive line. Here are some excerpts from our interview.

DeRocco (OFPL): Can you tell us the Humane Society’s thoughts on Michael Vick being allowed to reenter the NFL?

Goodwin (HSUS): We were agnostic on his return to the NFL. Our emphasis has been more on how Michael Vick can use his story to discourage young men from following that same destructive path of dog fighting.

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest and most effective animal protection organization—backed by 11 million Americans, or one in every 28.

His people reached out to us about six months ago and said that he had basically seen the errors of his ways when he was spending all those nights in prison and wanted to be a part of the solution, rather than a part of the problem. After soul-searching, we agreed that the best course of action for preventing dog fighting would be to give Michael Vick a platform to condemn that activity and encourage kids to take a better path.

So, when it came to him going back to the NFL, that really had nothing to do with our agenda, so we were agnostic on it. All of our passion is directed at stopping dog fighting and seeing how Michael Vick can engage in actions that save more dogs than he killed. Because to us, that’s the important thing: Can Michael Vick save more dogs than he killed? And if so, then we can get some good out of a horrible situation.

DeRocco (OFPL): Do you think Vick’s NFL career will withstand the scrutiny of his personal issues?

Goodwin (HSUS): I think that Michael Vick has one thing going for him, and that is that his future is in his hands, and his actions today will determine where he is tomorrow. If Michael Vick continues to speak out against dog fighting and speak to young men and women around the country, then I think that his career will be in a much better place a year or two down the road than it would be if he were to abandon his commitments.

DeRocco (OFPL): Is Michael Vick being treated fairly by the NFL? The public? The media?

Goodwin (HSUS): They [the NFL] are definitely treating him fairly. He’s been given a second chance, and I don’t think anybody that has been a Michael Vick supporter has anything to complain about in regards to that. He’s been fortunate in that regard.

When the bright spotlight was put on this back in 2007, I think that it was well-deserved, and it led to a greater awareness about dog fighting. There have been 27 new laws passed at both the state and federal level around the country. That includes 25 new state laws, one new law in the District of Columbia, and one new law at the federal level. This is all after Vick. It’s huge… The spotlight that was put on the issue was a silver lining on what was otherwise a dark, dark cloud.

DeRocco (OFPL): Do you think Vick was properly punished?

Goodwin (HSUS): I do. There were some who were upset that the present sentence wasn’t lengthier, but the judge was dealing with a federal statute that had specific minimum and maximum penalties, and he was dealing with a first-time offender. I think that the judge was very fair and gave out a strong punishment. It certainly had the desired impact on Michael Vick. This was a guy who had been a multi-millionaire, who then lost it all and spent over 500 nights in prison, and that gave him time to reflect on what he had done, and he was kicking himself for it. Now he’s come out and he’s speaking out against dog fighting. That’s the desired outcome of any criminal prosecution, and normally it doesn’t work that way. Normally, when someone comes out of prison for whatever crime, they don’t become advocates against their previous actions.

DeRocco (OFPL): How do you think the way he was punished compares to the punishment he gave his “underperforming” dogs?

Goodwin (HSUS): There’s no parity there. Those dogs were killed by horrible, brutal means, and obviously, one’s better off to serve time in prison than to be drowned or to be electrocuted. There’s just no comparison there. Those dogs – that was brutal.

DeRocco (OFPL): Do you think we punish harshly enough for animal crimes like this in general, or do we just not care enough if it’s not about human beings?

Goodwin (HSUS): The 50 states have 50 different state laws pertaining to cruelty and dog fighting, and I think that we’ve gotten to a good place with dog fighting where people who are involved in this really heinous crime are starting to serve prison sentences. That’s important, because there’s a lot of money that can be made in dog fighting and the punishment has to be greater than the potential gain that comes from winning those fights. Otherwise, the punishment is just the cost of doing business.

There are some states, like Mississippi, North and South Dakota, and Idaho, where you can set a kitten on fire and it’s a misdemeanor. That’s just not acceptable, because if you think about it, let’s say that you were to break into someone’s home to steal a valuable portrait of a kitten that was worth $10,000, and you set that portrait on fire. Because that painting is valued at a large sum of money, that would be a felony crime. But in a handful of states, if you were take an actual live kitten and set her on fire, you would get a misdemeanor. That’s not acceptable. So there are some states where the penalties for severe and egregious forms of animal cruelty have to be increased, but there are other states where if you set a kitten on fire, you’re going to prison. And you should.

DeRocco (OFPL): Do you have any opinion on whether this crime drew him more negative attention than if it wasn’t an animal-related crime?

Goodwin (HSUS): I think there are two factors at play. One, Americans do have a tendency to sympathize with the most defenseless among us, so if you harm children or animals or the elderly, then it evokes a lot of outrage and justifiably so. But second, this dog fighting operation was premeditated and it continued over the course of several years, and so I think that people tend to see premeditated crimes in a bit of a different light than crimes of passion that are not premeditated.

DeRocco (OFPL): Do you think Michael Vick’s own opinion on dog fighting has actually changed?

Goodwin (HSUS): I think that we need to let his actions over the next few years answer that question. I’m not a psychologist; I’m just a campaign manager for an animal protection organization. And so I hear words; I don’t always believe them. I’m more inclined to say, well, let’s let actions speak for themselves. We can judge by how much effort he puts into reaching out to young men and women that are at risk for getting into dog fighting. So far, he’s made four public appearances for the Humane Society of the United States, and he’s done a couple of things on his own, and there is a documentary TV series coming out on BET, which we were not aware of. I’ll be curious to see what he has to say in that. His actions are going to speak for themselves.

DeRocco (OFPL): Is Vick doing these campaigns by force?

Goodwin (HSUS): No, not really, because on one hand, his people approached us. On the other hand, the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles is pretty insistent that Michael Vick be involved in community efforts to prevent dog fighting and animal cruelty, so there’s a little bit of both. But to Vick’s credit, he did have his people approach us and not the other way around. He doesn’t have any sort of court order obligations and no money has exchanged hands either way.

DeRocco (OFPL): If you could get across one message to people regarding the Vick situation or dog fighting in general, what would it be?

Goodwin (HSUS): My message would be that, in the wake of the Vick case, the organized dog-fighting world has taken a hit and the numbers of dog fighters is down. But there are still far more people involved in this than most realize, so it’s important for people to care about animals and do everything they can to help stop this heinous activity.

DeRocco (OFPL): Does your message change depending on whether you’re preaching to the choir of animal lovers or to those who don’t have a strong opinion against dog fighting?

Goodwin (HSUS): The message is certainly different for the people who are strongly opposed to dog fighting. The message is going to be along the lines of what we can do together to end dog fighting. And then for the people that don’t really know anything about it, the message is more educational. Finally, for the people who are involved in it or at risk of getting involved in it, there’s an entirely different message: 1) This is an activity that is pointless but carries with it grave consequences, and 2) Those dogs, you know… they love you, and they put their lives on the line for you. They certainly deserve to be treated better than this.

DeRocco (OFPL): Are there other ways we can benefit from so public a case further down the road, other than that dog fighting was brought sharply into the public conscious?

Goodwin (HSUS): The fact that the public passion about this was so strong will hopefully make elected officials who are engaged in public policy debates with animal issues beyond dog fighting see that animal advocates are an organized constituency that demands to be heard and needs to be heard. So hopefully, this can lead to progress on all animal issues going even beyond dog fighting.

DeRocco (OFPL): What’s the latest news in dog fighting?

Goodwin (HSUS): Three times this decade, Congress has strengthened the federal law on animal fighting, and they’re going to give it another shot… It’s currently a federal felony to fight dogs when interstate commerce is affected, and it’s a federal felony to possess a dog with the intent to fight when interstate commerce is affected. We’re going to try to extend that to the people who knowingly attend animal fights as well, so that the people who are paying admission to get into dog fights can be covered under that same statute. So that’s pending. We’ll have something introduced soon.

DeRocco (OFPL): Besides Michael Vick and pit bulls, what is the media ignoring in terms of other animal fighting issues?

Goodwin (HSUS): Cock fighting is just as important as dog fighting. These roosters have knives attached to their heels and they fight to the death for nothing more than bloodlust and gambling. Whereas dog fighting is a felony in all 50 states now, cockfighting, though outlawed in all 50 states, is a misdemeanor in 11 and a felony in 39. Well, it’s rampant in the states where it’s a misdemeanor because the cock fighters move their operations from the states where the penalties are strong to states where the penalties are weak. I’ve seen the carnage that’s left behind after an organized cockfight where hundreds of birds are just piled up, dead with stab wounds. I think that’s repulsive, and I think that needs to be tackled with the same vigor that dog fighting’s tackled with.

The story of Michael Vick started with the Falcons, took a major detour at so-called fighting dogs, and now continues with the Eagles. If the Humane Society of the United States has anything to do with it, the chapter that follows the demise of Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels will give a resoundingly positive answer to Goodwin’s question: Can Michael Vick save more lives than he ended? We’ll be keeping score.