Loretta Fettig's lawyer called it "one of the saddest cases I've ever been involved in."

The sentencing judge said he believed it.

Fettig, now 17, was only 16 when she sliced a man's throat in a graveyard in a failed attempt to murder him. She's been a victim of abuse almost her whole life, public defender Mary Farrell said, including a "very serious" criminal case in Grand Haven when she was 12.

Fettig accused the man she tried to kill of sexually assaulting her in the past, although he's never been criminally charged with that for lack of evidence.

Fettig didn't mention her motive in a brief, soft-spoken statement to the judge before she was sentenced.

"I just want to apologize to the court and to my victim," she said. "Sorry to waste your time."

"She's been victimized by the system quite honestly," Farrell said. "She has not been provided with the mental health assistance that she needs. She has not been provided with the assistance until recently of anything you can call a family."

Though he agreed Fettig's background is "regrettable," Muskegon County Chief Circuit Judge William C. Marietti said it doesn't justify her "extremely violent action."

In her mind, "She had reason to be upset with him (the victim)," the judge said. But "our system is designed to address that in a civil fashion ... not through basically self help."

Without expressing an opinion on whether her accusations against the victim were correct, Marietti said, "it just doesn't justify what she did by any stretch of the imagination." He said it would be "anarchy" if everyone tried to handle private grievances violently.

"But for the grace of God this might be life without parole," Marietti said - the mandatory sentence for premeditated first-degree murder, which was her intention.

Instead, the victim survived and got away, and Fettig pleaded no contest May 2 to assault with intent to murder in exchange for dismissal of a second count of conspiracy to commit that crime.

Marietti stuck to a carefully negotiated sentence cap of eight to 30 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections.

That's the same sentence the judge May 31 gave Fettig's co-defendant, Lennell Marshawn Banks, 20, of Muskegon Heights. Banks had pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit assault with intent to murder, in exchange for dismissal of a charge of assault with intent to murder.

According to a transcript of a Muskegon police detective's sworn probable-cause statement that led to arrest warrants being signed for both defendants, Fettig confessed to slicing a man's throat with a box cutter the evening of Nov. 3, 2015, and Banks admitted helping plan the murder attempt. Both admitted they were armed at the time of the assault, the detective said.

Fettig was 16 at the time of the assault but was charged as an adult because of the seriousness of the crime.

According to the detective's Nov. 6 statement under oath to a magistrate, obtained by MLive from Muskegon County District Court, "Loretta states that she took the box cutter, sliced (the victim's) throat and then attempted to stab him in the stomach with a knife.

"The plan was that Mr. Banks was supposed to be close enough that he was going to jump in and assist finishing the deal, however, he was not in the correct position and was confused as to what she was doing, so," the detective said. "But he admits to taking participation in the planning and being ready to go forward with the plan."

Fettig lured the 22-year-old victim from Getty Street into a nearby cemetery, according to a Muskegon police report. The man ran away and called 911 from his home.