A federal appeals court has reaffirmed an earlier ruling that a Las Vegas woman was wrongly convicted of check fraud 15 years ago, and she now plans to file a civil rights case for damages.

The panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Joni Goldyn in February, finding she served 12 years in prison "for conduct that was not a crime."

The state attorney general's office had sought reconsideration of the decision by the entire court, but that was rejected. In a second clarifying opinion issued in April, the three-member appeals court panel reaffirmed its earlier ruling.

Goldyn said last week she was relieved that the ordeal was finally over.

Las Vegas attorney Allen Lichtenstein said he will be one of the attorneys representing Goldyn in the civil lawsuit, which should be filed this week in U.S. District Court.

Goldyn will be seeking damages for her years of incarceration and her children will be seeking damages for loss of consortium, he said.

"How much is 12 years of one's life worth? A lot," Lichtenstein said.

The question raised in the original appeals opinion was how the federal court could have a different interpretation of a state law than the state Supreme Court, he said. Although the state can define its own laws, the federal appeals court interpreted state statute differently because "plain language is plain language," Lichtenstein said.

Goldyn was sentenced to five life terms in 1991 for passing bad checks. She won a pardon in 1999 and was paroled in 2001.

Goldyn's run-in with the Nevada criminal justice system began in November 1987, when she opened checking and savings accounts with the Nevada Federal Credit Union. Goldyn also received a check guarantee card with a $500 limit. She wrote five checks even though she had no money in her account but the credit union covered them because of the guarantee card. The credit union covered the checks even after Goldyn exceeded her $500 limit.

But she was prosecuted and convicted by a jury of five counts of passing checks with insufficient funds.

Because she had previously been convicted of three felonies and one gross misdemeanor -- all fraud related -- she was sentenced as a habitual criminal to five life sentences.

On appeal to the federal court, Goldyn argued that if the credit union was obligated to cover her checks because of the check guarantee card, then she could not have written bad checks and the appeals court agreed.

"No check Goldyn wrote that was backed by her check guarantee card -- representing the bank's commitment to pay Goldyn's checks in full, regardless of the funds in her account -- could possibly have been a bad check," said Judge Alex Kozinski in the original appeals court decision.

In the new opinion, Kozinski said Goldyn might have been prosecuted for defrauding the bank.

"But the state charged her with writing bad checks, not fraud on the bank," he said. "Perhaps some would say that (Goldyn's) innocence is a mere technicality, but that would miss the point. In a society devoted to the rule of law, the difference between violating or not violating a criminal statute cannot be shrugged aside as a minor detail."

SEAN WHALEY

PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY DELAYED

The opening of the state's new psychiatric facility is delayed again.

During a tour of the new Rawson-Neal hospital last month, Dr. David Rosin, interim director of Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, said he hoped to have the first patient admitted on July 24.

Last week , Annie Uccelli, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Health and Human Services said the hospital is now scheduled to open in early September.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 28.

"We've had some construction delays,'' she said.

When the hospital opens, 150 beds will be available for adult psychiatric patients and, another 40 beds will open in the following months. Twenty-six psychiatric beds will remain open at Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health's facility along West Charleston Boulevard. The Rawson-Neal hospital is located at Oakey and Jones boulevards.

ANNETTE WELLS

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