Wednesday’s hearing is to determine whether Vick and three co-defendants have secured legal counsel or need the court to provide lawyers.

“It’s just going to be a routine day,” Poindexter said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Trial dates for Vick and the others on the state charges will be set Nov. 27, he said.

Vick was indicted last week in the rural county where he built a massive home on 15 acres that had been home to a dogfighting enterprise since 2001. He’s charged with beating or killing or causing dogs to fight other dogs and engaging in or promoting dogfighting. Each felony is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Lawyers for Vick have indicated they will fight the state charges on the grounds that he can’t be convicted twice of the same crime. In pleading guilty to the federal charge on Aug. 27, Vick admitted helping kill six to eight dogs, among other things. He faces up to five years in prison. Co-defendants Tony Taylor, Purnell Peace and Quanis Phillips also pleaded guilty to the same federal charge.

On Tuesday, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced Vick completed an eight-hour class in empathy and animal protection Sept. 18 at the group’s Norfolk headquarters. The organization said Vick took the course during his second visit to their headquarters and returned a third time to take a written test.

PETA did not reveal his score on the test, which spokesman Dan Shannon said includes an essay and long-answer questions.

Vick, suspended indefinitely by the NFL without pay, did himself no favors last month when he tested positive for marijuana, a violation of U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson’s order that he stay clean in exchange for being allowed to be free.

After that positive test, Hudson ordered Vick confined to his home address between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., with electronic monitoring and random drug testing.

The government insisted that Wyatt later took advantage of that relationship to secure the first contract under the oil-for-food program and to continue to receive oil deals after other American companies were denied access.

Wyatt's defense lawyers argued that their client was an American hero who never knowingly paid surcharges to the Iraqi government to win oil deals.

Wyatt made his early fortune in oil and eventually built a system to collect natural gas burned off in Texas oil wells, enabling him to sell the fuel to homeowners as far away as Utah, Michigan and New England.

Wyatt's ties to Utah run deeper than just selling natural gas. In the mid-1990s, he opposed an initiative put together by competing federal, state and private interests that called for conservation groups to purchase ranches in the Book Cliffs area of eastern Utah.

Those groups - in an effort to improve wildlife habitat and protect land from overgrazing - planned to turn the properties over to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the state's Division of Wildlife Resources.

The agencies would then agree to convert federal grazing permits to allow elk rather than cattle on the property.

Wyatt owned some of the ranchland and believed elk were eating forage that should have been feeding his 2,100 head of cattle. He challenged the initiative in court in an effort to outbid the DWR for the grazing permits. He eventually dropped his lawsuit, and the groups put together 500,000 acres for conservation.

The Washington-based U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, a special patent appeals court, reversed the trial court ruling and opened the door for Apotex.

However, Pfizer's ability to sell Norvasc without competition from other companies expired on Sept. 25, 2007.

Monica Prestia, who began working for Bloomberg LP as a sales representative in 1997, filed a suit in June claiming the company discriminated against her after she became pregnant in February of 2005.

The company treated her differently than similarly employed male workers and subjected her to "harassment, hostile work environment and other forms of discrimination," the complaint said.

The suit seeks unspecified damages and is pending in court.

On Thursday, the EEOC accused the New York-based company of similar discrimination, saying it engaged in a pattern of demoting women, diminishing their duties and excluding them from job opportunities after they disclosed they were pregnant.

Bloomberg LP spokeswoman Judith Czelusniak did not respond to a request for comment on the Prestia case; in court papers the company denied the allegations. About the EEOC suit on Thursday, Czelusniak said: "We believe strongly that the allegations are without merit and we intend to defend the case vigorously."

The agency brought the suit on behalf of three senior employees who had filed complaints with the EEOC regarding Bloomberg LP, saying the activities occurred with malice or reckless indifference to federal anti-discrimination laws. The EEOC is the federal agency charged with interpreting and enforcing laws passed to prevent discrimination in the workplace.

The women were expected to bring their own motion in court next week that further details their claims. They were identified by the EEOC as Tanys Lancaster, Jill Patricot and Janet Loures.

Lancaster was said to be earning close to $300,000 in a senior position in the company's Transaction Products Department when she announced her pregnancy.

"Almost immediately I began to suffer demotions, decreases in compensation as well as retaliation after I complained to Human Resources," she said in a statement.

Lancaster is no longer employed with Bloomberg. Patricot and Loures are still working there.

Patricot, who worked as a manager in the Global Data Division, claims that after returning to her job following maternity leave, she was demoted to an entry level position because her schedule had changed due to child care demands.

Loures was also a manager in the Global Data Division, and said her duties and staff were reduced starting with her first maternity leave and continuing through a second one. She is now employed in an entry-level clerical position, the EEOC said.

The EEOC said the women's claims of discrimination due to gender and pregnancy "were echoed by a number of other female current and former employees who have taken maternity leave."

Richard Roth, an attorney for the woman in the separate suit filed in June, said in an interview Friday that the EEOC complaint "helps expose what's really going on behind the scenes at Bloomberg."

It is a culture that Michael Bloomberg, who is a potential presidential candidate, was accused of fostering while he headed the company. Bloomberg stepped down as CEO to run for mayor in 2001 but retains a 68 percent stake in the company. A spokesman for Bloomberg declined to comment on the cases Friday.

While Bloomberg was CEO, a female sales executive accused him in a lawsuit of sexual harassment and other claims similar to these new allegations.

The suit, filed by Sekiko Sakai Garrison in 1997, claimed that he and other male managers displayed a discriminatory attitude toward pregnant women and new mothers.

It said that when he found out Garrison was pregnant, he told her "Kill it!" and said "Great! Number 16!" -- an apparent reference to the number of women in the company who were pregnant or had maternity-related status at the time.

It also claimed Bloomberg and other men at the company made "repeated and unwelcome" sexual comments, overtures and gestures, contributing to an offensive, locker-room environment.

Bloomberg adamantly denied the accusations; the suit was settled in 2000. Terms were not disclosed.

Turner's lawyers had linked his case with an appeal from two Kentucky inmates who argued that lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel. Both states use similar injection procedures employing three drugs.

The justices on Tuesday agreed to consider the Kentucky appeal, and Turner's case was viewed as a barometer of whether capital punishment in Texas could be placed on hold while the Supreme Court considers that case.

A student at Delaware State University is scheduled to appear in court today on attempted murder, assault and other charges.

Loyer Braden is accused of shooting two students last week near a dining hall on campus. Officials say the shooting followed a fight that Braden was involved in days before.

According to a police affidavit, a witness told police that he heard Braden say that he'd stay out of trouble if he managed to get away with the shooting. The affidavit also mentions a witness who saw Braden coming from the direction of the shooting and leaving in a car.

Braden is being held in jail on $$75,000. Prosecutors have filed a motion to increase his bail.