Opinion ID: 2523730
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Defendant's Juvenile and Criminal Histories

Text: The State presented stipulated copies of defendant's prior felony convictions. In 1996, defendant was sentenced to two years for felony theft and seven years for armed robbery after pleading guilty on both charges. The theft occurred when defendant broke into a Dunkin' Donuts where he had previously been employed and stole money from a locked office. In a separate incident, defendant and an accomplice returned to the same Dunkin' Donuts store, and defendant threatened store employees and customers with a handgun. He then removed money from the cash register and cash box. Defendant was incarcerated on May 10, 1996, and paroled December 8, 1998. During his incarceration, defendant was disciplined four times for insolence and related behavioral charges. Defendant was also written up once for gang-related activity after he displayed a gang hand signal. None of these incidents involved any injuries, however, and defendant did not lose any good-behavior credit. Also in 1996, defendant was sentenced to two years in the Department of Corrections for unlawful use of a firearm by a felon. Defendant pleaded guilty to that charge after officers discovered that defendant was carrying a loaded revolver on a city bus. The underlying felony was a 1994 Michigan conviction for possession of a controlled substance. The State also presented evidence of defendant's juvenile record in Michigan. That record includes at least 10 petitions filed between March 9, 1990, and September 24, 1993, alleging seven counts of breaking and entering, six counts of unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle, one count of deserting his home without justification, and one count of retail fraud. All but one of the breaking and entering counts alleged that defendant broke into an auto body shop with the intent to commit larceny therein. Documents also showed that defendant had been terminated from a drug abuse treatment program for threatening a patient and a psychiatrist in 1990, and that he had left his group home several times without permission in 1992. Finally, a petition filed February 5, 1993, alleged that defendant had assaulted a victim with a weapon in an incident involving four other perpetrators.