Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

You will need a criminal defense lawyer to evaluate the facts of your matter. There is a tremendous difference between unarmed robbery (15 year felony) and retail fraud-third (93 day jail misdemeanor).

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The military will want to know (from you) regarding any pending criminal matters, and probably will not "take you" if you have a charge pending or are on probation. Unarmed robbery requires more than "running", so if that's ALL you did then you're probably not guilty of unarmed robbery. This crime requires the use of force or violence against a person present and/or you assaulting or putting in fear a person present in order to get away with the theft. This assaultive/violent/threatening must occur while you are "in the course of" committing the larceny, which includes when you're trying to commit the theft, during the commission of the theft, in flight after committing the theft, or in trying to retain possession of the property. So, I'm assuming that you did something physical or threatening with a store employee, like a security officer, a "greeter", a clerk, etc? That's what can separate a case from being a simple shoplifting misdemeanor into a felony robbery. If prosecutors see violence used in the course of someone stealing, then this is a charging option. It isn't used in every case, of course. But I have prosecuted several cases like this where thieves violently assault store employees (people who are just doing their jobs) like punching, kicking, biting, eye-gouging, etc. That kind of brutality isn't needed. If you're caught, don't try to assault you way out of it. A few weeks ago I convicted a lady of Unarmed Robbery in part because she bit the security guy (nice bite mark photo) and gouged his eyes. I also convicted a lady of Armed Robbery (more serious than your charge) after she and other gals were stealing TVs from WalMart, and my defendant was followed into the parking lot by a 70-ish year old employee asking for the receipt, and the defendant eventually repeatedly pepper-sprayed him in the face. The mace blinded him for quite a while. She got about 9 years in prison, but a mere shoplifting would probably have been a jail term. She was so foolish. But we couldn't ignore her violence against this man.