AIBRIEF
Stephen Aarons was fined $5,000 after his appellate brief in a murder appeal cited witness statements from people who never existed.
The New Mexico Supreme Court held private criminal-defense attorney Stephen Aarons in contempt and fined him $5,000 on Wednesday for filing an appellate brief in a murder appeal that contained witness statements from people who never existed. Aarons told the court he used ChatGPT to summarize the trial proceedings and did not understand the tool could invent facts.
The fabricated material included fictional statements that the shooter was wearing dark pants and a white shirt, testimony no witness gave at trial. The court rejected Aarons's "honest mistake" framing, finding he had shown "a lack of remorse and a lack of concern for his client," and referred him to a disciplinary board for investigation.
The appeal itself remains pending. On 2 September it was reassigned to New Mexico public defender Kim Chavez Cook. Aarons, a private Santa Fe attorney, had been representing Oscar Renee Sandoval, who was convicted of murdering the mother of his children and sentenced to life in prison.
At a 21 August hearing, the court said unfamiliarity with AI "hallucination" would not be treated as mitigation. The Aarons filing is the latest in a growing list of lawyer-AI sanctions across state and federal courts. OpenAI declined to comment.