McClain sentenced to 25 years for armed robbery

An Enterprise man who pleaded guilty to armed robbery last month changed his mind at a sentencing hearing in Coffee County Circuit Court Jan. 5.

Michael Brett McClain, 25, told Circuit Judge Tom Head that after talking with a classification officer at the state prison he had been assigned to, he reconsidered the guilty plea that he had entered just before his jury trial was set to begin in Enterprise Nov. 16, 2015.

McClain said that he “knew but I didn’t know” that he had pleaded guilty to the Class A felony offense but that he was “emotionally distressed” due to the recent death of a woman who had raised him. “I pleaded guilty because I just wanted to get it over with,” McClain told the court, adding that he had been unaware that by pleading guilty he faced life without parole due to his five prior felony convictions.

McClain had been arrested by Enterprise police in connection with the Nov. 11, 2014 armed robbery of the Inland Station on Damascus Highway in Enterprise.

Twelfth Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney Josh Wilson told the court that McClain had been identified by Enterprise police on the store’s surveillance video shown drawing a knife on the gas station cashier while demanding all the cash in the cash drawer.

A relative of McClain’s, who had raised him since he was seven months old, told the court that McClain’s troubles began when he was born to a drug addicted mother.

“The reason that we’re here is because he (McClain) was (drug) addicted,” said McClain’s attorney Sonny Reagan. “He was brought into the world (drug) addicted.”

“Drugs in Michael’s life are an excuse for his behavior,” countered Wilson, adding that McClain “knowingly, intelligently, voluntarily” entered an admission of guilt. “Michael McClain has had his second chance and a third chance and a fourth chance and a fifth chance,” Wilson said.

After the court played the audio recording of McClain’s original guilty plea, Head denied McClain’s request to rescind his guilty plea and sentenced him to 300 months in prison. Head also ordered McClain to repay the Inland Station the $140.47 he had stolen during the armed robbery.