Aarons found in contempt, fined $5,000 over AI brief errors

The New Mexico Supreme Court found attorney Stephen Aarons in contempt of court, removed him from a murder case appeal and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine. Aarons admitted to the justices that he used ChatGPT to draft a brief containing fabricated witness testimony and false statements.

Aarons, a long-time New Mexico attorney, made the admission during arguments before the court. The appeal involved 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.

In a frank admission to justices, Aarons acknowledged his mistake. “I didn’t check the transcript against the summary of proceedings; that’s where my error was,” he said.

Aarons told the court he had “assumed” ChatGPT would generate a “bulletproof summary of proceedings.”

Justice David K. Thomson addressed Aarons directly. “It’s the duty of the lawyer to confirm the facts of the law,” Thomson said.

The justices tore up any arguments Aarons made on his behalf during the hearing, calling it their first case dealing with this type of issue.

Justice C. Shannon Bacon pressed Aarons on his awareness of the risks. “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 telling 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.

Aarons is also facing an investigation in front of the Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board.

In a statement, Aarons said he is cooperating with the board and will accept the consequences of his error. He explained that in March 2025 he agreed to handle the appeal and used ChatGPT to summarize the trial proceedings.

“I wrote the brief but the table of contents and the summary contained numerous errors,” Aarons said in the statement.

He added that he didn’t know AI could “hallucinate facts” at the time and supports the court’s decision to throw out his pleading and appoint another attorney to write a new brief.

“The most important thing is for my former client to get a fair hearing despite my mistake,” Aarons said.