## Facts

- Delbert Clemons signed his own name on a check drawn on a bank where he had no checking account or funds.
- The check did not use an alias, fictitious name, or another person’s name.
- Clemons pleaded guilty to forgery in an Ohio court of common pleas and was imprisoned.
- After about three months, Clemons petitioned for habeas corpus, alleging his conduct was not “forgery” under Ohio’s forgery statute because the instrument was genuinely executed in his true name.
- The trial court granted habeas corpus and ordered Clemons released; the court of appeals affirmed and certified a conflict on the legal question to the Supreme Court of Ohio.

## Issues

1. Whether signing one’s own true name to a check drawn on a bank where the drawer has no account or funds constitutes “forgery” under Ohio’s forgery statute.
2. Whether habeas corpus is available to discharge a prisoner convicted under a statute that, properly construed, does not criminalize the charged conduct.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the judgment discharging Clemons.
- The court held that signing one’s own true name to a check, even if drawn without an account or funds, is not “forgery” as defined by the Ohio statute.
- Because the statute did not reach Clemons’s conduct, the conviction was void and habeas corpus relief was proper.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory forgery requires a “false making” in the sense of a false execution: an instrument that purports to be the act of someone other than the actual maker.
- An instrument genuinely executed by the person whose name it bears is not a forged instrument merely because it conveys false implications (such as the existence of funds or authority to draw on a bank).
- Fraudulent issuance or use of a genuine instrument may be punishable under other criminal laws, but it is not forgery absent spurious execution.
- Habeas corpus lies to release a prisoner where the conviction is for conduct that does not constitute the offense charged, rendering the judgment void.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that a check signed in the drawer’s true name is not “falsely made” for purposes of Ohio’s forgery statute, even if the drawer lacks an account or funds, and it upheld habeas corpus relief because the conviction rested on noncriminal conduct under the statute.


In re Clemons, 168 Ohio St. 83 (1958)