News File Photo
The Alpena County courthouse appears in this August 2021 News archive photo.
ALPENA — A 21-year-old who served time in prison as a minor will return there after breaking into several vehicles in Alpena County while on parole.
Jacob Hanna on Monday in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court was sentenced to two years’ incarceration for breaking into vehicles on two separate dates earlier this year, on one occasion running away from the scene and making police chase him.
Sentenced to prison as an adult in 2017 for offenses committed when he was 15, Hanna was exposed to negative influences in prison, reducing his chances for a successful parole, said defense attorney Devin Pommerenke.
Though Hanna was not charged with a drug crime, his recent crimes were committed “under the influence of controlled substances,” Pommerenke said, asking that Black consider a minimal sentence with the possibility for substance abuse treatment to stop what Pommerenke called a cycle of substance abuse and crime.
At the time of Hanna’s 2017 sentencing, probation officers argued on the minor’s behalf, asking that he be kept out of prison. With a plea of first-degree home invasion and armed robbery on his record, perhaps Hanna’s five-year prison sentence was right, and perhaps it wasn’t, Black said.
Hanna, though young, could have taken lessons from his time in prison, but, when released on parole, “he kept doing things,” Black said.
Speaking to the defendant, Black said he wished the young man could see in himself what his probation officers saw in him five years ago.
“When you learn to have respect for yourself and other people, then you won’t be in prison,” Black said, sentencing Hanna to 23 months to five years in prison, with that time to begin at the conclusion of his current parole.
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