After Santa Fe defence lawyer Stephen Aarons filed a murder appeal brief that included police testimony and witness reports that were completely made up by OpenAI's ChatGPT, the New Mexico Supreme Court found him in contempt and fined him $5,000.
The court found him guilty of neglecting to confirm the authenticity of the court filing, which Aarons said he wrote with assistance from the AI program, reported Reuters. The bench noted that the document "contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses."
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Aarons had "demonstrated a lack of remorse and a lack of concern for his client," according to the panel. The court also stated that Aarons would be referred to an attorney disciplinary body for further inquiry.
When he agreed to take up the defendant's appeal last year, Aarons claimed in a statement to Reuters that he had used ChatGPT to summarise the trial proceedings and that he was unaware of the extent to which AI may "hallucinate" facts.
"I am remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board takes into account that it was an honest mistake," he said. "It is a lesson learned for all professionals who rely upon this powerful but sometimes unstable technology."
The court's punishment is the most recent of an increasing number of instances where state and federal judges have penalised attorneys for delivering court documents produced by artificial intelligence (AI) programs without thoroughly reviewing them.
Numerous attorneys have been penalised for submitting pleadings in which AI misquoted the law or created case citations. With fake witness testimony in a criminal appeal, Aarons' file seems to have gone even farther.
Aarons, a Santa Fe-based private lawyer, was representing Oscar Renee Sandoval, who had entered a not guilty plea to the murder of his children's mother before his conviction and life sentence last year.
The appeal was assigned to Kim Chavez Cook, a public defender from New Mexico, on September 2 and is currently pending.
Last month, the state supreme court ordered Aarons to explain how his principal brief in the appeal contained false evidence, which it claimed looked to contain "fictional statements that the shooter was wearing dark pants and a white shirt."
During a hearing on August 21, Aarons informed the court that he supplied ChatGPT with a computer-generated transcript and additional case materials, believing it would produce "a bulletproof summary."
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The judges seemed disbelieving that Aarons did not fully understand the potential for errors in AI.
"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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