The Georgia Supreme Court suspended a Clayton County prosecutor whose use of artificial intelligence led to her filing briefs loaded with phony case law, in a warning to all attorneys and trial judges in the state about the ways AI might impact their work.
Deborah Leslie, an assistant district attorney, can’t practice before the state’s high court for six months and must take additional continuing education courses before she can come back, the justices said in their ruling Tuesday.
The court, in an opinion penned by Justice Benjamin Land, included a warning to all Georgia lawyers about the use of AI in drafting briefs, saying that while there’s no rule against using the technology, there’s also no excuse for turning in work that includes false case law. That, the court said, “falls far beneath the conduct we expect from Georgia lawyers.”
In the underlying case, a trial judge had adopted an order mostly drafted by Leslie, and it had included case citations that either didn’t correspond with the propositions they were meant to support, or else were completely made up, court records show. In Tuesday’s ruling, the justices ordered Clayton County Superior Court Judge Jewel Scott to redo the ruling without the help of attorneys from either side in the case and cautioned all trial judges to be vigilant about problematic case citations.
“We strongly encourage trial courts to carefully review proposed orders with the understanding that artificial intelligence software, with all of its potential risks and benefits, may have been used to prepare such proposed orders,” the justices wrote.
The ruling also admonished Clayton County District Attorney Tasha Mosley for the conduct, although that part of the decision triggered a dissent by two justices.
Justices Shawn Ellen LaGrua, in a partial dissent joined by Verda Colvin, wrote that she “vehemently” declines to admonish the elected official for the episode. Mosley had been quick to apologize to the court and severe in her punishment of Leslie for the behavior, the dissenting justices noted.
“I work hard to follow the rules and obey the law so that my name remains in good standing, and I require the same ethical standards from each member of my team,” Mosley said in her letter.
She also said her office has since changed its policies to address her staff’s use of artificial intelligence.
Leslie was called out by Chief Justice Nels Peterson during oral arguments in March and asked why she’d filed a proposed order filled with phony case law and nonexistent quotations.
Credit: Supreme Court of Georgia
Credit: Supreme Court of Georgia
When asked whether those phantom citations were included in the denial order she prepared for the trial judge, Leslie told Peterson they were not.
“No, your honor. I do not believe so. They were not,” Leslie told the chief judge. “I did prepare an order. That order was revised.”
The trial judge had signed and issued the order as drafted with false citations in it, and Andrew Fleischman, the opposing attorney in the case, told the justices during the hearing that he had not clocked the wonky case law in the filings.
In a signed affidavit sent to the Supreme Court, Leslie later acknowledged using AI to conduct what she called “expanded legal research.”
She said she regretted submitting materials that contained “erroneous and fictitious case citations,” and said she would take steps to ensure “nothing of this nature occurs again.”
Leslie was arguing against a new trial for Hannah Payne, who is serving a life sentence for the 2019 killing of an unarmed motorist.
Authorities said Payne chased down and fatally shot 62-year-old Kenneth Herring after seeing him hit another vehicle in traffic.
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Payne, who was 21 at the time, called 911 before chasing Herring for about a mile and shooting him near the intersection of Riverdale Road and Forest Parkway, authorities said. Payne ignored the instructions of 911 dispatchers who told her to stay at the scene of the initial hit-and-run and not to confront the other driver, prosecutors argued at trial.
The woman’s appellate attorneys contend her first lawyer was ineffective because he failed to contend the shooting might have been justified under Georgia’s old citizens’ arrest law or that Payne was trying to protect other motorists.
Fleischman, Payne’s appellate attorney, said the state’s use of AI has delayed his client’s push for a new trial.
“It’s a shame that the remedy for the state doing something wrong is that my client spends months or years more in prison waiting for a resolution,” he said. “A mistake was made and my client is going to spend more time in prison because of it.”
As in other industries, Georgia prosecutors say they’re still adapting to the new technology while taking precautions to ensure it is used responsibly.
“It’s unfortunate, but we all know AI has infiltrated our federal courts and now our state courts,” said Pete Skandalakis, who heads the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia. “It is something that prosecutors have been discussing at length and trying to manage.”
While they don’t advise against using AI, Skandalakis said PAC encourages state prosecutors to be careful with the technology. He noted that artificial intelligence is already a major component of legal research platforms used by attorneys.
Going forward, Skandalakis also said his organization intends to expand its training on appellate writing while addressing the “intrusion of AI into court documents and briefs.”
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