New Mexico attorney held in contempt for AI-written murder brief
A prominent New Mexico attorney has been held in contempt of court by the New Mexico Supreme Court after admitting he used ChatGPT to draft a legal brief containing fabricated witnesses and false testimony in a murder appeal. The court’s ruling also removed him from the case and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine, marking what justices called their first case dealing with this type of issue.
Stephen Aarons acknowledged to the court that he “assumed” ChatGPT would generate a “bulletproof summary of proceedings” in the appeal of a Las Cruces man’s murder case. “It’s of little comfort to know that my stupidity is what brings us together this afternoon,” Aarons said as he began his arguments.
Before the Supreme Court, Aarons described his failure: “I didn’t check the transcript against the summary of proceedings; that’s where my error was.” According to the brief Aarons submitted, ChatGPT produced a version that included made-up testimony from fabricated witnesses.
Justice David K. Thomson told Aarons: “It’s the duty of the lawyer to confirm the facts of the law.” Justice C. Shannon Bacon also pressed him on the broader context of AI use in the legal profession.
“Do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what’s going on in the world? Because the problem with lawyers relying on AI and hallucinations is an above-the-fold story. Every single day,” Bacon said.
The court also criticized Aarons for not informing his client about the mistake and for failing to answer justices’ questions about how he should be disciplined. “So either you buried your head in the sand, and that’s a choice to do that, an intentional choice to be uninformed, or you took a gamble. And neither of those are consistent with the code of conduct,” Bacon said.
The justices tore up any arguments Aarons made during the hearing. Aarons is now facing an investigation before the Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board.
In a statement, Aarons said he is cooperating with the disciplinary board and will accept the consequences of his error. He said he agreed in March 2025 to handle the appeal and used ChatGPT to summarize the trial proceedings, writing the brief himself while the artificial intelligence produced a table of contents and summary that “contained numerous errors.”
“At the time, I didn’t know that AI could hallucinate facts not only in my brief but also in pleadings submitted by other attorneys in other cases,” Aarons said. He added that he supports the court’s decision to throw out his defective pleading and appoint another attorney to write a new brief, calling it “the most important thing” for his former client to receive a fair hearing.
