Joni Dahl

REGIONAL- Under Minnesota law, justice was served Monday when the man responsible for the drunk driving accident in Embarrass Township in August that killed 39-year-old Joni Dahl, of Gilbert, was sentenced to one year in the county jail and seven years of probation for criminal vehicular homicide.
But for those most deeply affected by Dahl’s death, the sentence handed down to 40-year-old Michael Kenneth Miller, of Virginia, in St. Louis County District Court did little to bring justice to the enormity of their loss.
Dahl’s longtime partner and fiancée Matthew Lenci, of Tower, talked with the Timberjay on Tuesday about his reaction to the sentence.
“I just feel like I got punched in the stomach and I’m worse off than I was before,” Lenci said. “It feels like I got slapped in the face like, oh, her life didn’t matter that much. I was already down and that was the last final kick.”
Plea and sentencing
When Miller pled guilty to the criminal vehicular homicide charge on Oct. 13, he admitted that on Aug. 12 he had been out drinking to celebrate his 40th birthday at area bars before driving home. When Miller’s truck crashed into Dahl’s car at about 11:30 p.m., killing her instantly, he had a blood alcohol content of .195, well over double the legal limit.
Under Minnesota law, the presumptive sentence for criminal vehicular homicide for a first-time offender like Miller is a prison sentence of 48 months, according to a post-sentencing press release from St. Louis County Attorney Kim Maki. Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Aaron Welch, who prosecuted the case, asked for the maximum four-year sentence to be imposed.
However, District Court Judge Robert Friday instead granted a defense motion for a lesser sentence based on Miller’s presumed amenability to probation. That decision was likely influenced in part by five letters from family and friends attesting to Miller’s overall character and his deep remorse over the accident.
Friday’s order specified that Miller serve one year in the St. Louis County Jail or the Northeast Regional Corrections Center, with credit for 31 days of jail time already served. Following his release on supervised probation, Miller must annually serve an additional four weeks in jail around the anniversary of Dahl’s death through 2027.
Friday also sentenced Miller to seven years of supervised probation, to include no possession of alcohol, drugs, or firearms, random testing and searches, and compliance with the state Ignition Interlock Program. Miller must also make restitution payments totaling $8,186 and pay a fine of $1,000.
Miller, who was free on a $30,000 conditional bond, was immediately taken into custody to begin serving his sentence.
Should Miller violate the terms of his probation he would be subject to imprisonment in accordance with the four-year maximum sentence.
Reactions
Lenci and Joni Dahl’s father, John Dahl, each submitted victim impact statements to the court, but Lenci said they apparently held little weight in Friday’s sentencing decision.
“I wrote that victim impact statement like it was a voice for her,” Lenci said. “And it almost seemed like it was just ignored and didn’t really have any merit on the case at all. I talked about how we were together, and we had planned to get married. She was already a stepmom to my three sons, even though we weren’t technically married, and we had this whole life planned and he ruined it.”
Lenci also described for the court that on the night of the accident Dahl didn’t arrive at his house when expected, and he became worried and went looking for her, knowing the route she would have traveled.
“I came across the accident scene and all the fire trucks and tow trucks. I didn’t know the extent of what happened, but I knew it was her,” Lenci said.
Miller’s sentence just doesn’t make sense to him, Lenci said.
“I don’t understand why the judge wouldn’t want to give the maximum sentence,” he said. “It wasn’t intentional, but still every decision that happened that night was on him and him alone.”
John Dahl said that he told the court that he lost more than a daughter when Joni was killed.
“I lost a friend,” he said. “I tried to explain it as such, because we did so much together. We rode motorcycles together, we went on trips together, we enjoyed doing the same things. And now I no longer have that person because she was taken away from me abruptly. And with her boyfriend, there were three kids there that would have become grandkids of a sort to me, and that’s not going to transpire. It changed our lives dramatically, and not for the better.”
Dahl said his attorney had prepared him for the possibility that Miller’s sentence would be less than what the state asked for, and was more measured in his response.
“I think that the sentence was rather lenient,” Dahl said. “But seven years of probation and monitoring, it might do the job if he wants to straighten out his life. If he doesn’t, no matter how long you put him in there it isn’t going to help. If he has to be reporting his whereabouts and everything for seven years, that’s no small amount of time, and he’s going to have ample time to think about what he did.”
Another family member, Chuck Neil, an older cousin of Joni, also weighed in on the sentence.
“I had known Joni since she was a little girl,” Neil said. “She and her father, brother, and stepmom were sitting at our table having dinner with us just a few weeks before she was killed. This is a shock to anyone who knew Joni and is an outrage to her family members. What kind of message is this to future drinkers celebrating whatever, who will be more tempted to drive drunk knowing that the consequences of even killing someone will likely be light?”
Light sentencing of drunk driving incidents nationwide has long been of concern to the advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Veronica Hawman, MADD’s Regional Executive Director for Minnesota, North and South Dakota.
“Justice was not served today in the case involving Mr. Michael Kenneth Miller and we are outraged,” Hawman said in a statement provided to the Timberjay. “Mr. Miller made a choice to drive under the influence of alcohol on Aug. 12, 2022, resulting in the death of Ms. Joni Dahl. Ms. Dahl’s family and friends will never be able to forget what happened, and Mr. Miller should not be given a pass to forget either. Impaired driving is a violent choice that takes lives and inflicts lifelong injuries.”
Joni Dahl was among 18 Minnesotans who lost their lives in alcohol-related vehicle incidents in August, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. In 2022, through the end of October, there had been 97 alcohol-related fatalities on state roadways, 25 percent of all vehicle fatalities so far this year.
And while the lives of Joni Dahl’s family and friends have been forever changed, her father said that by sticking together, life will go on.
“We’re going to get through this and the world is going to go on,” he said. “I lost, and other people lost a companion and so on because of this and we don’t like it. But we’ll get past it one way or another.”