MOORHEAD - A mother whose 9-year-old daughter turned her in to Barnesville police for growing pot in the family home has been sentenced to a month of electronic home monitoring at the county's expense.
Jodi Anne Miller, who has since moved to Fergus Falls, was sentenced Tuesday in Clay County District Court in a downward departure from what Minnesota sentencing guidelines usually require for a fifth-degree felony drug sale conviction. Miller pleaded guilty in July.
Miller's daughter approached Barnesville police officers in June 2014, court documents say. She told them the smoke from the marijuana grow operation was making her sick and that she was worried about her dog because her parents blew smoke into its mouth.
The sentence is part of a plea deal struck between prosecutors and Miller's defense attorney, Mara Rausch, who said at Miller's sentencing Tuesday that her client has a prescription for medical marijuana for multiple sclerosis.
Miller was sentenced to serve her 29 days of house arrest at county expense, plus five years of probation under a stay of adjudication. That means the felony conviction won't go on her record if she successfully completes the sentence.
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Defendants are usually required to pay for the cost of electronic home monitoring during house arrest, but Clay County is covering it because of the jail's inability to accommodate Miller's significant medical needs, Rausch said in court.
Judge Michelle Lawson denied Miller's request for a two-day furlough from home monitoring during Halloween to take her daughter trick-or-treating.
"You don't get out of jail to go trick-or-treating, you don't get off home monitoring," she said.
