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

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New Mexico's Supreme Court sanctioned attorney Stephen Aarons for filing a ChatGPT-generated brief in a murder conviction appeal that contained wholly fabricated witnesses and false testimony about the shooter's clothing and appearance. The court fined him $5,000 and held him in contempt for failing to verify factual claims before submitting.\n\nAarons told the court he believed ChatGPT would produce a 'bulletproof summary' of the trial. Justice C. Shannon Bacon's response was direct: 'Counsel, do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what's going on in the world? Because the problem with lawyers relying on AI hallucinations is an above-the-fold story every single day.'\n\nThe case continues a pattern courts are now treating as inexcusable. Last year two law firms were sanctioned for AI-generated false citations, and lawyers for MyPillow's Mike Lindell were fined for AI misquotes and fake case law. As AI tools proliferate in legal practice, fabricated citations, invented cases, and now fictional witnesses are appearing in filed documents.\n\nThe severity is amplified in criminal appeals: fabricated evidence submitted in a murder case directly implicates a defendant's due process rights. Aarons expressed remorse and characterized it as an honest mistake. The incident confirms that professional liability for unverified AI outputs is being established rapidly across the legal system.