A NEW Mexico lawyer has been fined US$5,000 after filing court documents containing fabricated police and witness evidence generated with the help of ChatGPT in an appeal against a murder conviction.
The New Mexico Supreme Court in Santa Fe found lawyer Stephen Aarons in contempt of court on Wednesday for failing to verify the documents he submitted in the criminal appeal.
Aarons admitted that he prepared the filings with assistance from an artificial intelligence (AI) programme, with the court finding that they included false testimony attributed to witnesses who were entirely fabricated.
The judges said Aarons “showed no remorse and did not care about his client”.
The court fined him US$5,000 (RM203,515) and said the matter would be referred to the state bar disciplinary board for further investigation.
Aarons, a private defence lawyer based in Santa Fe, told Reuters that he had used ChatGPT to summarise trial proceedings after agreeing last year to handle the defendant’s appeal.
He said he had not understood the extent to which AI could invent facts.
“I regret it but hope the disciplinary board will take into consideration that it was a mistake.
“This is a lesson for professionals who rely on technology,” he said.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
Aarons represented Oscar Renee Sandoval, who had pleaded not guilty to murdering the mother of his children before being convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment last year.
Sandoval’s appeal remains pending and was transferred on Sept 2 to another New Mexico defence lawyer, Kim Chavez Cook, who declined to comment.
The case highlights growing concerns over lawyers relying on AI-generated legal material without independently checking its accuracy.
Judges in state and federal courts have increasingly sanctioned lawyers for submitting AI-generated filings containing fabricated case citations or inaccurate legal references.
But the Aarons case is more serious because the disputed filing included fabricated witness testimony in a criminal appeal. - September 12, 2026
