Key facts
- New Mexico Supreme Court fined attorney Stephen Aarons $5,000 for submitting a brief with fabricated witness testimony.
- Aarons used ChatGPT to generate the brief, which included fake police testimony and misrepresentations of legal authority.
- The court found Aarons in direct contempt for submitting false information and referred him to a disciplinary board.
- Aarons admitted he did not verify the AI-generated content before filing it.
- The brief contained testimony from fabricated witnesses including Officer Michelle Amarillo, Officer Sanchez, Manal Al-Jibury, and Teresa Marquez.
- Aarons has been barred from appearing before the New Mexico Supreme Court pending disciplinary proceedings.
The New Mexico Supreme Court has fined attorney Stephen Aarons $5,000 for submitting a murder appeal brief that contained fabricated witness testimony and misrepresentations of legal authority, generated by artificial intelligence. The court held Aarons in direct contempt, citing his failure to verify the AI-generated content before filing it and his lack of remorse.
Aarons, a criminal defense lawyer in New Mexico for over 40 years, was hired to appeal the murder conviction of Oscar Renee Sandoval. He admitted to feeding a trial transcript and other case documents into ChatGPT, which then produced the false testimony and citations. The fabricated witnesses included Officer Michelle Amarillo, Officer Sanchez, Manal Al-Jibury, and Teresa Marquez, along with false testimony from Danny Stanton, Linda Stanton, and Mariah Chavez.
During a hearing, Aarons stated he was unaware that AI could "hallucinate facts" and assumed the output would be accurate. However, Justice C. Shannon Bacon criticized this claim, noting the widespread public awareness of AI's potential for generating false information. The court struck all previous briefs from the record and ordered the public defender's office to appoint a new lawyer for Sandoval. Aarons has been barred from appearing before the New Mexico Supreme Court pending further disciplinary proceedings.