Johnathan Walker:Michigan man who was 17 when he killed a jogger will get a chance at parole

MIDLAND,Johnathan Walker Mich. (AP) — A man who was 17 when he attacked and killed a jogger in the Midland area in 1983 will get a shorter sentence and a chance for parole after the Michigan Supreme Court declined to step into the case.

Brian Granger so far has spent 40 years in prison while serving a life sentence. He and other teenagers convicted of murder have benefited from a series of decisions that have forced judges in Michigan and elsewhere in the U.S. to revisit no-parole punishments.

A Midland County judge in 2022 was ordered by the state appeals court to give Granger a shorter sentence. The Michigan Supreme Court said Friday it would let that decision stand.

Granger, now 58, has “shown significant rehabilitation throughout his nearly 40 years in prison that counsel against a life-without-parole sentence,” the appeals court said two years ago, while citing several other factors in his favor.

He is not the ‘“rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption,’” the court said, quoting a standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Granger was convicted of killing Sandra Nestle, a mother of three. Investigators said her body was discovered lying face down and nude in a drain in 1983.

“I know there’s nothing I can do now to take back what I did, but if there’s anything that I can say to her loved ones, possibly to try to help them heal, I would like to. I’ve always had trouble showing emotions on the outside, but I assure you, I feel your pain. And I’m truly sorry,” Granger said in court in 2020.

Prosecutors and Nestle’s family had been in favor of another no-parole sentence, the Midland Daily News reported at that time.