Harm Ledger · verified · Computer Science
In September 2026 the New Mexico Supreme Court held attorney Stephen Aarons in contempt, fined him $5,000, and referred him for discipline after a murder-appeal brief prepared with ChatGPT included wholly fabricated witnesses and false police testimony.
Current score
−0.24
Fabricated witness testimony in a murder appeal is significant institutional harm (tier 2). Lawyers had a duty to check (0.35). The contempt order is a primary court record (1.0). Realization is the filed brief and sanction. Durability is the record and discipline referral, not a population injury.
Aarons told the court he fed transcripts and case materials to ChatGPT expecting a reliable summary and did not verify the brief. The court found fictitious officers and witnesses, false testimony about clothing and threats, and misrepresented authorities in a live murder appeal. This is a documented integrity failure in a criminal appellate proceeding, worse in kind than typical hallucinated citations, but still case-level rather than population harm.
The New Mexico Supreme Court found that a ChatGPT-assisted murder-appeal brief contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses and held counsel in contempt.
outcome · supported
primary sources
New Mexico Supreme Court · regulatory record · 9 Sep 2026
independent sources
Reuters · journalism · 11 Sep 2026
13 Sep 2026 · 0.00 → 0.24
Imported events under methodology 0.1.
