How come Michael Vick now has a chance to pay his debt to society and move on, play in the NFL, and earn millions. His crime was full of savagery, brutal, and depraved. It was on-going for years, and he did it just for fun. I believe he'll never do it again. Why can't Sullivan at age 13 get the same chance to reform?

Because Michael Vick wasn't torturing and killing dogs, not human beings.

How many 72 year old women did Michael Vick rape? I forget.

EarlyBird and quidfecisti - I agree. Hurting a human is much more egregious than hurting an animal. Got it. However, a sentence of life "without parole" is different from any other sentence. It says, we give up on you. You are beyond rehabilitation. The focus is on the offender. If it were a choice of a 20 year sentence or 50, then the fact that the victim is a dog and not a 72-year-old woman is significant. But, if the decision is whether or not to rule out rehabilitation completely, then the focus is entirely on the perpetrator. In that case, the focus necessarily is on whatever the offense might reveal about the moral fabric of the perpetrator. As between Michael Vick and Sullivan, I'm not so sure. Certainly, not as sure as I'd want to be before I'd rule out the possibility of change for a 13-year-old.

I'm not sure if you do get it or what you point is here. If Vick was to again commit another crime like the one he did there would be some dead dogs. Now I'm a big animal lover but still the danger to society as a whole isn't that great if Vick was to do the same crime again. Of course I would want Vick to get 10 years AND have to do the full time.

So the main concern has to be about the safety of society and this 13 year old is a danger and these types rarely change.

How does anyone predict whether or not a particular offender is a danger to society years into the future? My guess is that it's more art than science. I certainly would not want to be the parole officer charged with the responsibility. Even if you're right that "these types rarely change," how do you know that this one won't. Do you really want to play these odds with someone else's life?

and do you feel confident that Michael Vick's next victim would be a dog?

I think most people could reasonably assume that, yes...

Besides, one cannot be punished for what we think he might do.

I wouldn't roll the dice on the lives of any future victims. As for the convicts, roll away...