State v. Hayes, 2017 Ohio 7718

Defendant Angela Hayes operated two corporations with separate bank accounts (Huntington and U.S. Bank); Huntington account was largely overdrawn for an extended period.
Hayes attempted to deposit a $21,346 two-party check into Huntington; initial deposit was rejected for incorrect names and missing signature; belatedly redeposited on April 21, 2015.
Over a three-day period in early April, Hayes wrote three checks from the Huntington account to be deposited into her U.S. Bank account (totaling ~$11,065); she withdrew over $10,000 from the U.S. Bank account the same period.
U.S. Bank presented the checks, they were dishonored for insufficient funds within 30 days, and U.S. Bank sent Hayes a statutory notice of dishonor which she received and did not satisfy within ten days.
A Huntington branch manager wrote a letter corroborating Hayes’s account that the initial deposit was rejected; Hayes did not call the manager at trial and proffered the letter instead.
Trial jury convicted Hayes of three counts of passing bad checks (R.C. 2913.11) and aggregated grand theft; on appeal Hayes challenged sufficiency (intent), ineffective assistance for failing to subpoena the branch manager, and allied-offense merger.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence for passing bad checks (intent to defraud)	State: statutory presumption applies when checks are dishonored within 30 days and not satisfied within 10 days; evidence showed Hayes received notice and didn’t pay, so intent inferred	Hayes: lacked intent because she relied on the $21,346 deposit which was (initially) rejected and she didn’t know it was dishonored	Affirmed — evidence sufficient; statutory presumption and account history supported intent to defraud
Ineffective assistance for failing to subpoena Huntington branch manager	State: failure to call manager was not prejudicial because manager’s letter would be cumulative and presumption applies after dishonor; defense had testimony on timeline	Hayes: counsel failed to investigate/subpoena manager whose testimony/letter would corroborate she lacked knowledge of dishonor and thus intent	Affirmed (majority): no prejudice shown and presumption dispositive; Dissent: counsel deficient and prejudice shown — would remand for new trial
Allied-offense/merger of bad-check counts and grand theft	State: separate acts and harms — three separate presentations of checks and separate withdrawals supporting grand theft aggregation	Hayes: all acts were part of one insufficient-funds saga and should merge	Affirmed — convictions may stand; offenses were committed by separate acts and defendant failed to address Ruff prongs on appeal

State v. Thompkins, 78 Ohio St.3d 380 (standard for sufficiency review)
State v. Jenks, 61 Ohio St.3d 259 (evidence reviewed in light most favorable to prosecution)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective-assistance two-prong test)
State v. Ruff, 143 Ohio St.3d 114 (allied-offense/merger three-part inquiry)
State v. Earley, 145 Ohio St.3d 281 (appellate limitations on conduct-based allied-offense analysis)