New Mexico Lawyer Held in Contempt for Using ChatGPT to Fabricate Witness Testimony
2 sources across 2 countries · Qatar · United States · 1 of them is linked to a state
Who reported this
- Al Jazeera
- Ars Technica
What the colours mean
- Left
- Centre-left
- Centre
- Centre-right
- Right
- A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.
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The New Mexico Supreme Court has held attorney Stephen Aarons in direct contempt of court and fined him 5,000 dollars for submitting a legal brief containing fabricated witnesses and false testimony generated by ChatGPT. Aarons, a criminal defense lawyer with over 40 years of experience, was representing Oscar Renee Sandoval in an appeal against a life sentence for the murder of his partner, Shiereen Al-Jibury. The court found that the brief included fake police testimony and fictional statements regarding the shooter's appearance, as well as misrepresented legal authority in case citations.
Aarons admitted to the court that he fed trial transcripts and case materials into the AI tool to create a summary and failed to verify the factual claims before filing the document. He also failed to inform his client about these errors. While the court stated that Aarons demonstrated a lack of remorse and concern for his client, Aarons told Reuters that he did not understand the extent to which AI could hallucinate facts and described the incident as an honest mistake. The state's highest court has referred Aarons to a disciplinary board for further proceedings.
This case is part of a broader trend where judges have disciplined lawyers for submitting unvetted AI generated documents. The appeal for Sandoval is still pending and has been reassigned to public defender Kim Chavez Cook.
How each side framed it
- Centre-left
- The center-left lean outlet framed the event within the broader context of AI hallucinations and the systemic issue of lawyers being sanctioned for using AI tools.
- Centre
- The center lean outlet focused on the specific details of the fabricated testimony and the lawyer's failure to verify facts.
Sources
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