"I didn't know that AI could hallucinate facts," New Mexico defense lawyer says. The New Mexico Supreme Court held a ChatGPT-using lawyer in direct contempt of court for submitting a brief with "false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses," including fake police testimony and other mistakes.

What happened

The New Mexico Supreme Court held a ChatGPT-using lawyer in direct contempt of court for submitting a brief with "false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses," including fake police testimony and other mistakes. Aarons has been a criminal defense lawyer in New Mexico for over 40 years and was hired by a defendant's family members to appeal a murder conviction.

Aaron's now-former client, Oscar Renee Sandoval, was sentenced to life in prison in February 2025 after being convicted of killing Shiereen Al-Jibury, who was his partner and the mother of his children. A little over a year ago, in August 2025, Aarons submitted the brief containing fake testimony and other errors.

Weeks later, the state of New Mexico filed a motion to strike portions of that brief.

The important details

“Respondent admitted to the Court that the brief in chief contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses—Officer Michelle Amarillo, Officer Sanchez, Manal Al-Jibury, and Teresa Marquez,” the court order on Wednesday said. Aarons further admitted submitting “false testimony from Danny Stanton that he received threats,” “false testimony from Linda Stanton about the threats her husband received,” and “false testimony from Mariah Chavez and Teresa Marquez (fabricated witness) regarding the shooter’s clothing and appearance,” according to the order, which said Aarons also “misrepresented legal authority” in citations to previous cases.

Many lawyers have been caught citing fake cases in briefs or inaccurately describing real cases. While Aarons didn’t cite fake cases, he inaccurately described real ones and cited fake testimony.

Aarons told the state Supreme Court at a hearing on August 21 that he fed a computer-generated transcript of the murder trial and other documents related to the case into ChatGPT, which outputted the fake quotes.

Context and impact

“It’s of little comfort to know that my stupidity is what brings us together this afternoon,” Aarons told the court. Aarons admitted his brief quoted “several witnesses who were never called at trial,” another “witness who was called but the brief got the name wrong,” and that his brief inaccurately described precedents.

Aarons indicated that he used a version of ChatGPT powered by the OpenAI o3 model, which was released earlier in 2025. “I assumed that it generated a bulletproof summary of proceedings,” he said at the hearing, explaining that he thought it would be accurate because of how widespread AI use is in the legal and medical fields.

Aarons was barred from appearing before the New Mexico Supreme Court pending the outcome of any disciplinary board investigation and proceedings.

What comes next

He was fined $5,000, to be paid to the State Bar of New Mexico Client Protection Fund, but more penalties could come out of the disciplinary proceedings ordered by the court. The state Supreme Court ordered the public defender office to appoint a new lawyer for the defendant, struck all previous briefs from the record, and said the case will proceed in the court’s 2026-27 term.

Justices lambasted Aarons during last month’s hearing. They expressed surprise that Aarons didn’t know AI tools could generate false information and pointed out that attorneys must verify the accuracy of information no matter where it comes from.

Whether a lawyer gets help from an AI tool, a law student, or a fellow attorney, the lawyer signing the brief must attest to its accuracy, they said.

Key signals

• Aaron's now-former client, Oscar Renee Sandoval, was sentenced to life in prison in February 2025 after being convicted of killing Shiereen Al-Jibury, who was his partner and the mother of his children.
• Aarons indicated that he used a version of ChatGPT powered by the OpenAI o3 model, which was released earlier in 2025.
• Do you read anything about what’s going on in the world?

What to watch

The next signal is whether other platforms, publishers, agencies, or large buyers adopt the same posture.