Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case

The New Mexico Supreme Court fined lawyer Stephen Aarons $5,000 and held him in contempt for submitting an AI-generated appeal brief in a murder case that contained fabricated witnesses and false police testimony, according to Reuters. The court found Aarons failed to "verify the factual claims and legal authority in his AI-generated brief" after he admitted using ChatGPT to produce what he expected would be a "bulletproof summary" of the trial. Justice C. Shannon Bacon pressed Aarons at an August hearing, asking, "Counsel, do you watch the news?" and noting that lawyers relying on AI hallucinations is "an above-the-fold story every single day.

New Mexico’s Supreme Court is punishing a lawyer for including AI-fabricated witnesses and fake police testimony in an appeal for his client’s murder conviction, according to a report from Reuters https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/chatgpt-invented-fake-police-testimony-murder-appeal-new-mexico-high-court-says-2026-09-11/ . In a filing on Wednesday https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28617907-nm-lawyer-ai-brief/ , the court fined Stephen Aarons $5,000 and held him in contempt for failing to “verify the factual claims and legal authority in his AI-generated brief.” Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case A justice asked, ‘Counsel, do you watch the news?’ when a lawyer admitted to relying on ChatGPT without understanding the risks. The filing says the brief “contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses,” along with “false testimony” about the shooter’s clothing and appearance. Justice C. Shannon Bacon questioned how Aarons wasn’t aware of the risks posed by AI during an August hearing, where he admitted to using ChatGPT and thinking it would generate a “bulletproof summary” of the trial. “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 Bacon said, according to Reuters . “Because the problem with lawyers relying on AI hallucinations is an above-the-fold story every single day.” With the number of lawyers using AI tools /policy/677373/lawyers-chatgpt-hallucinations-ai in their work increasing https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law practice/resources/law-practice-magazine/2026/march-april-2026/8am-legal-industry-report/ , so are the instances in which a court discovers citations that are fabricated — or hallucinated — by AI. Last year, a judge slammed two law firms for submitting a brief /news/666443/judge-slams-lawyers-ai-bogus-research with “numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations and quotations,” while lawyers for MyPillow’s Mike Lindell /news/701557/the-mypillow-guys-lawyers-got-fined-for-using-false-ai-generated-citations were also fined for putting AI-generated misquotes and fake AI citations in a brief. ”I am remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board takes into account it was an honest mistake,” Aarons says in a statement to Reuters . Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.