A Michigan man convicted of killing a 19-year-old woman on his doorstep last November will spend the next 17 to 32 years in prison.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Dana Hathaway sentenced Theodore Wafer to this prison term after he was convicted Aug. 7 of second-degree murder, manslaughter and using a firearm to commit a felony.

Wafer, an airport worker living in a suburb of Detroit, fatally shot Renisha McBride when she appeared on his doorstep. The case raised national attention as to whether race was a factor in the killing, since Wafer is white and McBride was African-American.

"This is yet another case that shows the justice system at work in Wayne County-from the police investigators, the prosecutors, the jury and judge, to the family of Renisha McBride, who stoically and patiently waited for justice," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement after the sentencing. "We all must remember that a young woman with her future ahead of her lost her life and will be gone to us forever."

While Michigan law does give protection for residents to use firearms to defend themselves in their homes, a jury found Wafer guilty of murder, discrediting his self-defense argument as McBride was unarmed on his porch.

In the trial, the 55-year-old claimed that he was fearful of a break-in when he heard banging on his front and side doors in the early hours of Nov. 2. Wafer opened his front door and shot McBride through the closed screen door.

"Many days I think about the good times we shared and how it was cut short by a person's cowardly actions," McBride's sister, Jasmine McBride, said. "I was taught to apologize when I made a mistake or an accident. Never once had I heard Mr. Wafer send his condolences ... I find it very hard to believe that his actions were an accident."