# Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case

> New Mexico's Supreme Court has sanctioned a defense lawyer who filed an appeal in a murder case that leaned on witnesses and police testimony that never existed. He had used ChatGPT to help build what he hoped would be a bulletproof summary, and the tool obligingly manufactured names and quotes that made it into the official record. The lawyer's defense, that he did not realize AI could hallucinate facts, is by now a familiar refrain. Courts across the country have spent two years fining attorneys for citing cases and evidence a chatbot fabricated, yet the filings keep coming. What makes this one land harder is the stakes, a client's murder conviction, where invented evidence is not just embarrassing but potentially damaging to a real person's appeal. The episode is a small, concrete reminder that the gap between how these tools feel, confident and authoritative, and how they actually behave, fluent guessing, is still catching professionals off guard even in settings where accuracy is the entire job.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: The Verge · Published Saturday, September 12, 2026_

## Wortins' read

New Mexico's Supreme Court has sanctioned a defense lawyer who filed an appeal in a murder case that leaned on witnesses and police testimony that never existed. He had used ChatGPT to help build what he hoped would be a bulletproof summary, and the tool obligingly manufactured names and quotes that made it into the official record. The lawyer's defense, that he did not realize AI could hallucinate facts, is by now a familiar refrain. Courts across the country have spent two years fining attorneys for citing cases and evidence a chatbot fabricated, yet the filings keep coming. What makes this one land harder is the stakes, a client's murder conviction, where invented evidence is not just embarrassing but potentially damaging to a real person's appeal. The episode is a small, concrete reminder that the gap between how these tools feel, confident and authoritative, and how they actually behave, fluent guessing, is still catching professionals off guard even in settings where accuracy is the entire job.

## Source

[Read the full story at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/994207/chatgpt-new-mexico-lawyer-fined-murder-appeal)

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