New Mexico Supreme Court fines lawyer after ChatGPT fabricates witness testimony in murder appeal
A defense lawyer appealing his client’s murder conviction submitted a brief containing fabricated police testimony and witnesses created by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to New Mexico’s highest court.
On Wednesday, the New Mexico Supreme Court in the United States fined the lawyer, Stephen Aarons, and held him in contempt for failing to verify the accuracy of the court filing, which Aarons admitted to preparing with assistance from the artificial intelligence (AI) program.
The filing “contained false testimony from entirely fabricated witnesses,” the court stated.
The panel also mentioned that Aarons had “demonstrated a lack of remorse and a lack of concern for his client.” The justices fined Aarons $5,000 and announced they will refer him to an attorney disciplinary board for further investigation.
Aarons, in a statement to the Reuters news agency, mentioned he had used ChatGPT to summarize the trial proceedings when he agreed to handle the defendant’s appeal last year and was unaware of the extent to which AI could “hallucinate” facts.
“I am remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board considers it an honest mistake,” he stated. “It is a lesson learned for all professionals who depend on this powerful but sometimes unreliable technology.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Use of AI tools
The court’s sanction is the latest in a growing number of instances where state and federal judges have disciplined lawyers for submitting court documents generated by AI tools without adequately reviewing them. Some judges have also come under scrutiny for their use of AI.
Dozens of lawyers have been sanctioned for submitting briefs where AI generated incorrect case citations or misquoted the law. Aarons’s filing seems to have gone further, containing fabricated witness testimony in a criminal appeal.
Aarons, a private attorney based in Santa Fe, was handling the appeal of Oscar Renee Sandoval, who pleaded not guilty to the murder of his children’s mother before being convicted and sentenced to life in prison last year.
The appeal is still pending and was assigned on September 2 to Kim Chavez Cook, a New Mexico public defender. Cook declined to comment.
The district attorney’s office for Dona Ana County also declined to comment.
Last month, the state supreme court ordered Aarons to explain how the fabricated material, which it noted included “fictional statements that the shooter was wearing dark pants and a white shirt,” was incorporated into his primary brief in the appeal.
Aarons told the court at an August 21 hearing that he input a computer-generated transcript and other case materials into ChatGPT, assuming it would produce “a bulletproof summary.”
The justices seemed incredulous that Aarons was not fully aware of how AI can make errors.
“Counsel, do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what’s going on in the world?” Justice C. Shannon Bacon said at the hearing. “Because the problem with lawyers relying on AI hallucinations is an above-the-fold story every single day.”
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