Although Brian and Charity Miller, the Dexter couple who chained their 5-year-old boy to his crib nightly, will be in jail for the next year, the couple can still work toward completing a case plan to get their two sons back.

Judge Fred Wellmann ruled to uphold the Millers’ parental rights Thursday afternoon. On Friday, Judge Donald Rysavy sentenced both parents to one year in jail on charges of false imprisonment and malicious punishment.

According to Todd Schoonover, who speaks on behalf of the boys, the Millers can work on a case plan while in jail.

“If the parents are willing to work a plan while they’re incarcerated, everybody will work that plan with them and give the parents every opportunity they have to work that plan,” Schoonover said.

Schoonover said he, the Mower County Attorney’s Office, Mower County Human Services, the Cherokee Tribe and therapists will work together to recommend a plan to Judge Wellmann.

“We need to work toward reunification,” he said.

Wellmann ruled the Millers are “palpably unfit” to be parents and the sons have experienced “egregious harm.” However, Mower County Human Services did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt it made an active effort to reunify the family, a step necessary because the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) applies, since the children are members of the Cherokee Tribe.

Brian and Charity have six months under federal guidelines to complete a case plan to reunify with their children. If they have not completed the plan by the six-month deadline, they can ask for a six-month extension. An extension would only be granted if the couple has made “significant progress,” according to Schoonover.

However, if the couple has not completed a plan or made significant progress within six months, the Mower County Attorney’s Office can file for another termination of parental rights trial.

“The county attorneys will decide if and when another TPR (termination of parental rights) gets filed,” Schoonover said. “Judge Wellmann will be the one to decide if and when the children are returned.”

In the meantime, the children will remain in protective custody while their parents carry out their jail time. Schoonover, along with therapists and social workers, will continue working with the children.

“Everybody — therapists, the Tribe, county attorneys, guardian ad litem — involved will do what is best for the boys,” Schoonover said. “Everybody from the county and the judge did an extremely good job of doing what is best for the boys. I thought everybody today (at the sentencing hearing) did the right thing.”