US lawyer cites fake witnesses in murder case, blames ChatGPT

State supreme court fined the attorney and held him in contempt for not verifying facts in a court filing.

The New Mexico state Supreme Court’s sanctions are the latest in a growing number of disciplinary measures against lawyers for submitting AI-produced, unverified court documents [File: Dado Ruvic/Reuters]

A defense lawyer appealing his client’s murder conviction submitted a brief containing made-up police testimony and witnesses fabricated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, New Mexico’s highest court has said.

The New Mexico Supreme Court in the United States on Wednesday fined the lawyer, Stephen Aarons, and held him in contempt for failing to verify the accuracy of the court filing, which Aarons said he prepared with help from the artificial intelligence (AI) programme.

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The filing “contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses”, the court said.

The panel also said Aarons had “demonstrated a lack of remorse and a lack of concern for his client”. The justices fined Aarons $5,000 and said they will refer him to an attorney disciplinary board for investigation.

Aarons, in a statement to the Reuters news agency, said he had used ChatGPT to summarise the trial proceedings when he agreed to take up the defendant’s appeal last year, and did not understand the degree to which AI could “hallucinate” facts.

“I am remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board takes into account it was an honest mistake,” he said. “It is a lesson learned for all professionals who rely upon this powerful but sometimes unstable technology.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The court’s sanction is the latest in a growing number of cases in which state and federal judges have disciplined lawyers for submitting court documents generated by AI tools without adequately vetting them. Some judges have also faced scrutiny over the use of AI.

Dozens of lawyers have been sanctioned for filing briefs where AI made up case citations or misquoted the law. Aarons’s filing appears to have gone further, containing fabricated witness testimony in a criminal appeal.

Aarons, a private attorney based in Santa Fe, was handling the appeal of Oscar Renee Sandoval, who pleaded not guilty to the murder of the mother of his children before he was convicted and sentenced last year to life in prison.

The appeal is still pending and was assigned on September 2 to Kim Chavez Cook, a New Mexico public defender. Cook declined to comment.

The district attorney’s office for Dona Ana County also declined to comment.

The state supreme court last month ordered Aarons to explain how the fabricated material, which it said appeared to include “fictional statements that the shooter was wearing dark pants and a white shirt”, was included in his primary brief in the appeal.

Aarons told the court at an August 21 hearing that he fed a computer-generated transcript and other case materials to ChatGPT, presuming it would generate “a bulletproof summary”.

The justices sounded incredulous that Aarons was not fully aware of how AI can make mistakes.

“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.”

州最高法院对该律师处以罚款，并因其未在法庭文件中核实事实而判其藐视法庭。

新墨西哥州最高法院的制裁是针对律师提交人工智能生成、未经核实的法庭文件而采取的日益增多的纪律处分措施中的最新一起。[图片：Dado Ruvic/路透社]

新墨西哥州最高法院表示，一名辩护律师在为其当事人的谋杀罪定罪提出上诉时，提交了一份包含捏造的警方证词和由 OpenAI 的 ChatGPT 程序伪造的证人的辩护状。

美国新墨西哥州最高法院周三对律师斯蒂芬·阿伦斯处以罚款，并认定他藐视法庭，因为他未能核实法庭文件的准确性。阿伦斯称，这份文件是他借助人工智能（AI）程序准备的。

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法院表示，该文件“包含完全捏造的证人的虚假证词”。

陪审团还表示，阿伦斯“缺乏悔意，也漠视其委托人的利益”。法官们对阿伦斯处以5000美元罚款，并表示将把他移交律师纪律委员会进行调查。

阿伦斯在接受路透社采访时表示，去年他同意受理被告的上诉时，曾使用 ChatGPT 来总结审判程序，但他并不了解人工智能在多大程度上会“臆想”事实。

“我深感懊悔，但希望纪律委员会能够考虑到这只是一个无心之失，”他说。“这对所有依赖这项功能强大但有时又不稳定的技术的专业人士来说都是一个教训。”

OpenAI尚未对此事作出回应。

法院的处罚是近期一系列案件中的最新一起，这些案件中，州和联邦法官都曾因律师提交未经充分审核的人工智能工具生成的法庭文件而对其进行纪律处分。一些法官也因使用人工智能而受到审查。

数十名律师因提交捏造案例引用或错误引述法律条文的诉讼摘要而受到制裁。阿伦斯提交的摘要似乎更进一步，其中包含在刑事上诉中捏造的证人证词。

位于圣达菲的私人律师艾伦斯正在处理奥斯卡·雷内·桑多瓦尔的上诉案。桑多瓦尔被控谋杀了自己的孩子的母亲，但他拒不不认罪，最终于去年被判处终身监禁。

上诉仍在审理中，并于9月2日分配给新墨西哥州公设辩护人金·查韦斯·库克（Kim Chavez Cook）负责。库克拒绝置评。

多纳安娜县地方检察官办公室也拒绝置评。

上个月，州最高法院命令艾伦斯解释，他是如何将捏造的材料（该法院称这些材料似乎包括“枪手穿着深色裤子和白色衬衫的虚构陈述”）纳入其上诉的主要简报中的。

8 月 21 日，阿伦斯在法庭上表示，他将电脑生成的笔录和其他案件材料提供给 ChatGPT，以为它会生成“一份万无一失的摘要”。

法官们对艾伦斯竟然没有完全意识到人工智能会犯错感到难以置信。

“律师，你看新闻吗？你听广播吗？你了解世界正在发生的事情吗？”法官C·香农·培根在听证会上说道，“因为律师依赖人工智能幻觉的问题，每天都是头版头条新闻。”