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.

“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. 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.

Justice: “You buried your head in the sand”

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.