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Prosecutor suspended by state supreme court for artificial intelligence use in court docs
May 7, 2026, 10:27 am CDT
A Georgia prosecutor who repeatedly filed documents with artificial intelligence-generated citations that referenced cases that were wrong or fictitious during a murder trial has been suspended for six months from practicing before the Georgia Supreme Court. (Image from Shutterstock)
A Georgia prosecutor who repeatedly filed documents with artificial intelligence-generated citations that referenced cases that were wrong or fictitious during a murder trial has been suspended for six months from practicing before the Georgia Supreme Court.
Law & Crime has the story.
Clayton County Assistant District Attorney Deborah Leslie’s filings came during the course of appeal of a murder case that made its way to the Georgia Supreme Court in March. After noting the incorrect filings during oral argument, the state supreme court asked the state to explain itself.
In a supplemental brief and affidavit, Leslie acknowledged the use of AI to draft the state’s reply briefs and the order that the district court used to deny Hannah Payne’s motion for a new trial, according to the state supreme court’s Tuesday opinion, which imposed the sanctions.
Initially, the brief contained “nonexistent cases,” according to the opinion, but the mistakes compounded when responding to Payne’s appeal, when “Leslie once again cited cases that do not stand for the proposition asserted.”
Along with nine cases listed in the high court’s March 20, 2025, order, Leslie identified 12 more cases in her briefing that were AI-generated but “were not independently verified and do not stand for the propositions for which they were offered,” according to the Georgia Supreme Court’s opinion.
She also withdrew reliance on nine authorities cited in the state’s Dec. 16, 2025, appellate brief, which “were cited for propositions not supported by the actual holdings of those decisions; case citations that do not correspond to existing Georgia or federal precedent; and/or case quotations that do not accurately reflect the language of the cited opinions,” according to the opinion.
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