His release came at the end of a series of discoveries that his lawyers say underscores the problems of cases that rely too heavily on eyewitness identification, which studies now show often can be mistaken.
Granger was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1982 for the October 1980 shooting death of Edward Harris. Three eyewitnesses, including an off-duty Philadelphia police officer, testified against him.
Wednesday's release - highly unusual in the case of a life sentence - resulted from an agreement reached by the District Attorney's Office and Granger's attorneys, Karl Schwartz and David Rudovsky, who were battling to win him a new trial.
"It's unconscionable that it took 30 years for the facts to be disclosed," said Rudovsky, a veteran defense lawyer who got involved in the case on behalf of the Innocence Project of Pennsylvania.
He said the case highlighted "inherent problems" with eyewitness testimony. "The flaws in that testimony should have been shown to the jury," said Rudovsky.
For years, two of Granger's daughters worked to free him, and in 2008, they finally persuaded Schwartz, then a public defender, to take on the case.
As he went through the record, Schwartz said, he was puzzled that another eyewitness, a barmaid, was never called to testify by the prosecution.
He said he asked Common Pleas Court Judge Earl W. Trent Jr., who was presiding over the appeal, to grant him access to the homicide detectives' file. In an unusual move, the judge approved the request.
Schwartz said prosecutors vigorously opposed Trent's ruling, but he soon got to see the file. There, he found that the off-duty officer had failed to identify Granger in a photo spread - an important piece of information that could have been used to discredit the officer's critical testimony.
