New Mexico high court sanctions lawyer over AI-fabricated witnesses
The New Mexico Supreme Court held lawyer Stephen Aarons in direct contempt and imposed a $5,000 fine after he admitted filing a ChatGPT-assisted murder-appeal brief containing false testimony, wholly fabricated witnesses and misrepresented legal authority without verification. The court ordered a disciplinary referral and substitute counsel for the client.
Why it matters: The failure extended beyond invented citations into a fictional evidentiary record in a life-sentence appeal. It demonstrates that source-grounding and signatory review must cover facts, witnesses, transcripts and authorities—not only case citations.