{"slug": "ai-video-of-dead-road-rage-victim-used-in-court-to-deliver-message-to-killer", "title": "AI video of dead road rage victim used in court to deliver message to killer", "summary": "The Arizona Court of Appeals on Wednesday vacated the 10-and-a-half-year manslaughter sentence of Gabriel Horcasitas, 55, and ordered him resentenced because an AI-generated video of his victim, Chris Pelkey, 37, was played as a victim impact statement at sentencing. The appellate court ruled the synthetic video — created by Pelkey's sister Stacey Wales using photographs, an age filter and cloned voice audio — was 'not reliable' and 'so prejudicial as to render the sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair,' distinguishing it from the photographs at issue in State v Rose because it 'does not reflect actual events.'", "body_md": "A road rage killer had his manslaughter sentence tossed after an [AI](https://metro.co.uk/tag/artificial-intelligence/)-generated video message of the dead victim was played in court\n\nGabriel Horcasitas, 55, was [ordered](https://law.justia.com/cases/arizona/court-of-appeals-division-one-published/2026/1-ca-cr-25-0191.html) on Wednesday to be resentenced by the Arizona Court of Appeals.\n\nHorcasitas was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for the 2021 shooting and killing of Chris Pelkey, 37, at a red light in Chandler.\n\nDuring the sentencing, a computer-generated video of Chris saying he ‘forgives’ his killer was played as a victim impact statement.\n\nThis video made the judge ‘so prejudicial as to render the sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair’, the appellate court ruling said.\n\n‘We vacate the manslaughter sentence and remand for resentencing because the AI video was not reliable,’ it added.\n\n## Family wanted to bring victim ‘back to life’ using AI\n\nChris’ family decided to ‘bring him back to life’ by using AI to read out a statement, sister Stacey [Wales](https://metro.co.uk/tag/wales/) told [News 4 San Antonio](https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/ai-avatar-of-road-rage-shooting-victim-addresses-his-killer-in-court-arizona-judge-sentence-prison-family).\n\nShe fed the tech photographs of Chris and used an ‘age filter’ to make him appear in his 40s, which he would have been at the time if alive.\n\nStacey also uploaded video and audio of Chris talking so the programme could clone his voice.\n\n‘All I kept coming back to, what would Chris say?’ she said. ‘It became so real I broke down in tears.’\n\nStacey scripted her synthetic sibling to tell the judge: ‘It’s a shame we encountered each other that day under those circumstances; in another life we could have been friends.\n\n‘I believe in forgiveness and God who forgives. I always have and still do.’\n\nThe video showed a fake Chris wearing a baseball cap and an olive green zip-up hoodie, his mouth not quite syncing with the audio.\n\nAfter the video played, Judge Todd Lang said he ‘loved the AI’ and felt it was ‘genuine’.\n\nThe forged video showed the ‘obvious forgiveness’ of Horcastitas, which Lang said came from the victim’s ‘heart’.\n\nVictim impact statements are read to courts during the sentencing hearing so judges can consider the full extent of harm caused by the [crime](https://metro.co.uk/tag/crime-news/).\n\nStacey’s lawyer, Jessica Gattuso, initially doubted whether a statement read by a [deepfake](https://metro.co.uk/tag/deepfake/) is ‘even legal’.\n\n‘Our law in Arizona says victims can give their victim impact statement, they have the discretion to choose how they give their victim impact statement,’ Gattuso said.\n\nThe Court of Appeals had similar concerns, writing that the state has never addressed the admissibility of AI-generated victim personas.\n\nInstead, appellate judges looked to the Arizona Supreme Court’s analysis in [State v Rose](https://law.justia.com/cases/arizona/supreme-court/2013/cr-10-0362.html).\n\nEdward James Rose, sentenced to death for the 2007 killing of a [Phoenix](https://metro.co.uk/tag/phoenix/) police officer, said that photos of the officer’s sons at his grave were too prejudicial to be considered victim impact evidence.\n\nBut the top court said that while the images came ‘close’ to ‘crossing the line’, with or without them, the sentencing would have been the same.\n\n‘By contrast, the AI video crossed that line,’ the appellate judges wrote of Chris.\n\n‘Unlike the photographs in Rose, which captured a particularly poignant moment for the young surviving victims, the AI video here (excluding the embedded “real” videos of the victim) does not reflect actual events.\n\n‘Indeed, rather than documenting an event or recording a particular moment, the AI video presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim’s sister.’\n\nThe appellate judge took issue with how the video was screened, as if the victim themselves said it from beyond the grave.\n\nThe AI Chris said: ‘This here is a true representation of who I was, you know, not how the courtroom portrayed me.’\n\nStacey previously told [Arizona’s Family](https://www.azfamily.com/2025/05/06/chandler-road-rage-shooting-victim-speaks-using-artificial-intelligence/) that she wrote ‘what [Chris] would have said’ in the victim impact statement script.\n\n‘I said, “That’s pretty good, I’d like to hear that if I was the judge”,’ she told the broadcaster.\n\nShe added that she scripted this even though she was not ready to forgive Horcasitas.\n\n‘He stood for people and for God and for love,’ Stacey said.\n\nHorcasitas’ resentencing date has yet to be decided.\n\n**Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [webnews@metro.co.uk](mailto:webnews@metro.co.uk).**\n\n**For more stories like this,** [**check our news page**](https://metro.co.uk/news/).\n\nMORE: [US diplomat whisked from UK over paedophilia claims ‘swapped 75 child abuse pics with brother’](https://metro.co.uk/2026/10/04/us-diplomat-whisked-uk-swapped-75-child-abuse-pics-brother-29676747/?ico=more_text_links)\n\nMORE: [Woman told her partner she had sold their two children when she had never given birth](https://metro.co.uk/2026/10/03/woman-told-partner-sold-two-children-never-given-birth-29675990/?ico=more_text_links)\n\nMORE: [Trump says he feels ‘bad’ for Cornell 7 and calls investigator by ‘racist’ nickname](https://metro.co.uk/2026/10/03/trump-says-feels-bad-cornell-7-calls-investigator-racist-nickname-29675709/?ico=more_text_links)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-video-of-dead-road-rage-victim-used-in-court-to-deliver-message-to-killer", "canonical_source": "https://metro.co.uk/2026/10/04/ai-video-dead-road-rage-victim-used-court-deliver-message-killer-29677504/", "published_at": "2026-10-04 14:39:11+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-04 14:43:28.048944+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-ethics", "generative-ai", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Arizona Court of Appeals", "Gabriel Horcasitas", "Chris Pelkey", "Stacey Wales", "Todd Lang", "Jessica Gattuso", "State v Rose", "Edward James Rose"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-video-of-dead-road-rage-victim-used-in-court-to-deliver-message-to-killer", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-video-of-dead-road-rage-victim-used-in-court-to-deliver-message-to-killer.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-video-of-dead-road-rage-victim-used-in-court-to-deliver-message-to-killer.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-video-of-dead-road-rage-victim-used-in-court-to-deliver-message-to-killer.jsonld"}}