GoKawiilNew Mexico Supreme Court Fines Lawyer $5,000 Over ChatGPT-Fabricated Court Filing
The New Mexico Supreme Court held attorney Stephen Aarons in contempt and fined him $5,000 after he submitted an appellate brief containing fictitious police testimony and witnesses invented by ChatGPT. Aarons said he used the AI tool to summarize trial proceedings for a murder conviction appeal, claiming he didn't realize it could fabricate facts. The court is also referring him to a disciplinary board for further investigation.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
This case marks an escalation from prior AI-related sanctions, which mostly involved fake legal citations, to outright invented witness testimony in a criminal appeal—raising the stakes for due process and legal ethics. The justices' sharp questioning signals judicial impatience with lawyers who plead ignorance about well-documented AI hallucination risks, suggesting future sanctions may grow harsher as such incidents multiply across the profession.
- Attorney Stephen Aarons was fined $5,000 and held in contempt for filing an AI-generated brief with fabricated testimony.
- The case involves invented witnesses and police testimony, going beyond earlier AI sanction cases limited to fake case citations.
- The New Mexico Supreme Court referred Aarons to a disciplinary board, and justices publicly criticized his claimed unfamiliarity with AI's tendency to hallucinate facts.
Source: slashdot.org — Posted, 2026-09-15
Published there as: “ChatGPT-Using Lawyer Cited Its Fake Witnesses and Police Testimony in Court”
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