If a defendant's name is misspelled on a sworn complaint, the court clerk may correct it and the prosecution may proceed on the complaint.

• A. True
• B. False
• C. It may be corrected by correction by court order
• D. It must be corrected by filing a new complaint

Answer: (B)

A charging document must correctly identify the defendant, and a misspelled name is more than a simple typo—it affects who is being charged and the notice the defendant receives. The court cannot simply rely on a clerk’s unilateral correction to let the prosecution proceed on the original, misnamed complaint. Instead, corrections to a defendant’s name must be handled through a formal amendment to the charging document (often via an amended information or complaint), typically with the court’s involvement or order. In practice, once the name is corrected by proper amendment, the case can proceed on the corrected document. This is why the statement is not correct: the prosecution cannot proceed on a misnamed complaint just because the clerk fixes the spelling.