Or at least murder your career. The brief from the criminal defense attorney includes imaginary testimony & imaginary witnesses, thanks to AI.

According to Staci Zaretsky in Above the Law (story here), New Mexico attorney Stephen Aarons was held in contempt and fined $5,000 after filing an appellate brief containing “false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses,” according to the state Supreme Court. Aarons represented Oscar Renee Sandoval, who was convicted of murdering the mother of his children and sentenced to life in prison.

As reported by Reuters, Aarons used ChatGPT to summarize a computer-generated transcript and other materials from Sandoval’s trial. He told the court that he assumed the chatbot would produce “a bulletproof summary.”

As Zaretsky noted: “It did not.”

Per Jon Brodkin at ArsTechnica (story here), a little over a year ago, in August 2025, Aarons submitted the brief containing fake testimony and other errors. Weeks later, the state of New Mexico filed a motion to strike portions of that brief.

“Respondent admitted to the Court that the brief in chief contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses—Officer Michelle Amarillo, Officer Sanchez, Manal Al-Jibury, and Teresa Marquez,” the court order on Wednesday said.

Aarons further admitted submitting “false testimony from Danny Stanton that he received threats,” “false testimony from Linda Stanton about the threats her husband received,” and “false testimony from Mariah Chavez and Teresa Marquez (fabricated witness) regarding the shooter’s clothing and appearance,” according to the order, which said the criminal defense attorney also “misrepresented legal authority” in citations to previous cases (i.e., the more traditional type of hallucinations we’ve seen from AI in cases).

Justice C. Shannon Bacon put it rather bluntly in last month’s hearing:

“So 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,” she said. “So either you buried your head in the sand—and that’s a choice to do that, an intentional choice to be uninformed—or you took a gamble, and neither of those are consistent with the code of conduct.”

While Aarons responded that he submitted the brief a year ago and “a lot has come out in the last year”, AI hallucinated cases have been in the news for over three years now.

The criminal defense attorney’s statement to ArsTechnica where he called it “an honest mistake”) included this: “At the time, I didn’t know that AI could hallucinate facts not only in my brief but in pleadings submitted by other attorneys.”

And this: “I am glad the court threw out my defective pleading and ordered the public defender to write a new brief on behalf of my former client.”

That statement is loaded, as the article goes on to note that Bacon criticized Aarons for not disclosing the problem to his client. Aarons said he was hired by Sandoval’s brother and cousin, and that he told them there was a problem with a brief. “They’re aware that there was a problem with the first brief that I filed and that the court’s looking at that. That’s pretty much it,” he said.

Bacon replied, “You didn’t say, ‘I relied on ChatGPT and it submitted lies to the court and the court is mad at me and now there’s a hearing.’ I’m guessing you didn’t tell your client’s family members that.”

He confirmed that he didn’t.

Bacon asked Aarons whether he was working on the case on a public defender contract or as private counsel. Aarons answered that he was hired as private counsel but hadn’t been paid yet.

“I’m not sure that’s going to happen,” Bacon replied.

When the brief filed by the criminal defense attorney includes imaginary testimony & imaginary witnesses (thanks to AI hallucinations), it probably shouldn’t.

So, what do you think? Were the sanctions appropriate in this case? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using ChatGPT, using the term “robot lawyer standing in front of five judges in a courtroom with egg on his face”.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.