Biography
Joni McCoy was an anti-nuclear activist whose oral history describes two distinct three-month periods of imprisonment connected with her resistance activities.
Three 1986 initial arrests verified
The primary appellate opinion, United States v. Joan McCoy, 866 F.2d 826, documents separate arrests and military custody on March 9, May 11 and June 8, 1986 while McCoy distributed peace leaflets at the Wurtsmith entrance. These initial detentions are now individually recorded; their release days remain unknown. The opinion does not establish continuous imprisonment between these arrests. Primary court opinion.
Judge James P. Churchill subsequently convicted her on three counts under 18 U.S.C. 1382. The opinion states that she completed the total twelve-week sentence before appellate briefs were filed, but gives no sentence-admission or release day. Its January 19, 1989 decision and March 14 rehearing denial are not release dates. The twelve-week sentence has not been added as a new counted prison term or assigned to either existing oral-history stay without a case-to-stay bridge.
Rosalie G. Riegle's Doing Time for Peace identifies Joan (Joni) McCoy, her attorney husband Pat and their Saginaw peace work. Her own interview describes a Lexington federal stay and a later Bay County jail stay, each described in months, without reliable years or exact endpoints. Those existing records are retained without transferring the 1986 arrest dates to their sentence admissions.
The same book, printed page 294, contains a portrait captioned Joni McCoy, Saginaw, Michigan, 2011, courtesy of Janice Coty. This is an identified photograph lead, not a photo of a Colorado children's author, New Zealand realtor or Texas athlete of the same name. No copy is published here because independent reuse permission has not been established.
Contemporary identification of the Lexington Wurtsmith stay
The December 1986 report names Joan McCoy among the four currently imprisoned Wurtsmith peace leafleters and individually lists her at the federal women’s unit in Lexington, Kentucky, under a nominal twelve-week term. This provides a contemporary 1986 case-to-location bridge to the existing separately documented Lexington stay, rather than a third counted stay. The directory gives January 5, 1987 as expected release only, not actual discharge. Neither that forecast nor the nominal twelve weeks overwrites the independently reported three-month service or supplies an exact admission. Her other Wurtsmith arrests and later Bay County stay remain separate.
The Nuclear Resister No.43, December 12, 1986: Original PDF page 2 (printed page 1); Original PDF page 4 (printed page 3).
The 1986 Lexington directory identifies Joan (Joni) McCoy under historical number 10858-039; the existing three-month actual-service subtotal remains.
