{"id":3535,"date":"2026-09-12T00:44:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/lawyer-fined-5k-over-ai-hallucinated-witnesses-in-a-murder-case\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T00:44:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:44:02","slug":"lawyer-fined-5k-over-ai-hallucinated-witnesses-in-a-murder-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/lawyer-fined-5k-over-ai-hallucinated-witnesses-in-a-murder-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Digital photo collage of a judge with gavel whose hands has too many fingers.\" data-caption=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"Illustration by Cath Virginia \/ The Verge | Photos from Getty Images\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/chorus\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/25384193\/STK470_AI_LAW_CVIRGINIA_C.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,0,100,100\" \/><figcaption>\n\t\t<\/figcaption><\/p><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Mexico&rsquo;s Supreme Court is punishing a lawyer for including AI-fabricated witnesses and fake police testimony in an appeal for his client&rsquo;s murder conviction, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/chatgpt-invented-fake-police-testimony-murder-appeal-new-mexico-high-court-says-2026-09-11\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report from <em>Reuters<\/em><\/a>. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28617907-nm-lawyer-ai-brief\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a filing on Wednesday<\/a>, the court fined Stephen Aarons $5,000 and held him in contempt for failing to \u00ab\u00a0verify the factual claims and legal authority in his AI-generated brief.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The filing says the brief \u00ab\u00a0contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses,\u00a0\u00bb along with \u00ab\u00a0false testimony\u00a0\u00bb about the shooter&rsquo;s clothing and appearance. Justice C. Shannon Bacon questioned how Aarons wasn&rsquo;t aware of the risks posed by AI during an August hearing \u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/ai-artificial-intelligence\/994207\/chatgpt-new-mexico-lawyer-fined-murder-appeal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full story at The Verge.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Mexico&rsquo;s Supreme Court is punishing a lawyer for including AI-fabricated witnesses and fake police testimony in an appeal for [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}