Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case
A justice asked, ‘Counsel, do you watch the news?’ when a lawyer admitted to relying on ChatGPT without understanding the risks.
by Emma Roth
Sep 11, 2026, 8:44 PM UTC
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
New Mexico’s Supreme Court is punishing a lawyer for including AI-fabricated witnesses and fake police testimony in an appeal for his client’s murder conviction, according to a report from Reuters. In a filing on Wednesday, the court fined Stephen Aarons $5,000 and held him in contempt for failing to “verify the factual claims and legal authority in his AI-generated brief.”
The filing says the brief “contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses,” along with “false testimony” about the...
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