Rook's Clipboard
Daily · dive · 2026-09-11
The brief invented cops
ChatGPT invented police officers for a murder appeal. The lawyer signed it. The client is still in prison.
What happened
This week New Mexico’s Supreme Court held Santa Fe defense lawyer Stephen Aarons in contempt. They fined him $5,000, struck his briefs, barred him from that court for now, and sent the file to a disciplinary board. His client, Oscar Renee Sandoval, is serving life for a 2025 murder conviction. A public defender gets the appeal. The man in the cell stays in the cell while that happens.
Aarons has been a criminal defense lawyer for more than forty years. Last August he fed a computer-generated trial transcript and other case files into ChatGPT. He assumed it would spit out a “bulletproof summary.” He signed the brief. He filed it.
The brief quoted people who were never in the courtroom. Fake police, including Officer Michelle Amarillo and Officer Sanchez. Other invented witnesses. Fake quotes from real witnesses too — threats that were not testified to, clothes the shooter was not described as wearing. The state noticed. The court called it “false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses.”
Aarons told the justices he did not check the facts before he signed. He did not tell his client. The client speaks Spanish. Aarons told the family there was “a problem with the brief.” He did not say ChatGPT invented cops.
Justice C. Shannon Bacon asked if he watches the news. She said her 13-year-old nephew and her 75-year-old stepmother both know chatbots make things up. Aarons said he didn’t know ChatGPT could invent facts.
Why it matters
The hype sentence is AI lawyer. The true sentence is: the signature is still yours.
A chatbot will invent a police officer with the same confidence it writes a pasta recipe. It sounds like a brief. It is not a brief until a human checks the names against the room. The man serving life does not get a do-over because the summary sounded sure.
This is not a cute tech blooper. Dozens of lawyers have already been caught citing fake cases. This one put fake testimony in a murder appeal.
What I'd actually do
One house rule this week. If ChatGPT — or any chatbot — summarizes anything you have to put your name on, open the original and check the names. Court, school, work, a letter. If they were not in the room, they do not go in the document.
Do not paste a client file, a work folder, or anyone’s private papers into a chatbot. The company keeps what you give it.
If you are the adult in the room: “help me find the quote” and “write it, I’ll sign it” are not the same job.
The extra room
How it works
ChatGPT predicts plausible sentences from the pile you dumped in. It does not sit in court. It does not know Officer Amarillo was never a person. It will still format the fake quote like a transcript. Aarons said the trial transcript itself was fine. The problem started when he loaded that plus the rest of the file into ChatGPT and trusted the summary.
What it is not
A junior lawyer. A librarian. An excuse. Justice Michael Vigil put it in soup: if a first-year made it up and you signed it, you would be in the same pot. The tool does not change the rule. You check, then you sign.
What not to do
Do not wait for a court to write a special “AI rule” before you check names. The old rule already says you do not file things that are not true. Do not tell the family “there was a problem with the brief” when the problem is invented police. Do not make this a morality play about one older lawyer who “didn’t know.” Bacon’s line is the clipboard: you either buried your head, or you took a gamble. Neither is a plan.
Chief Justice Julie Vargas did not want a policy seminar. She wanted to know what happens to the client who is still in custody because the brief cannot be trusted. That is the correct question.
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