New Mexico Supreme Court fines lawyer $5,000 over ChatGPT-fabricated witnesses

The New Mexico Supreme Court has fined attorney Stephen Aarons $5,000 and held him in contempt of court after he filed a murder appeal containing fabricated witness testimony — all of it hallucinated by ChatGPT. The decision, handed down Wednesday, found that Aarons failed to "verify the factual assertions and legal authorities in his AI-generated briefs," according to a Reuters report.

The briefs Aarons submitted included false testimony from entirely invented witnesses, as well as fabricated details about the shooter's clothing and appearance. During an August hearing, Justice C. Shannon Bacon pressed Aarons on how he remained unaware of the risks of using AI tools, after he admitted relying on ChatGPT in the belief it would produce a "bulletproof summary" of the trial. "Counsel, do you watch the news? Listen to the radio? Read anything about what's going on in the world?" Bacon asked, according to Reuters. "Because the problem of lawyers relying on AI hallucinations is a headline every day."

The case joins a string of similar incidents over the past year. A federal judge sanctioned two law firms for briefs containing "numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations," and attorneys for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell were also fined after submitting faulty citations and fabricated authorities generated by an AI tool. The pattern is widening as more lawyers adopt generative tools in daily practice.

Aarons told Reuters he is "remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board will take into account that this was a good-faith mistake." The New Mexico Supreme Court's ruling draws a clear line: courts are not accepting "the model got it wrong" as a defense against professional negligence, and they are requiring attorneys to verify every fact and citation before filing — even when the source is an advanced AI tool.