Prosecutors' AI-Generated Filing Withdrawn After Errors Discovered
A district attorney's office in Northern California has admitted to using artificial intelligence to prepare a court filing, resulting in a motion that contained significant inaccuracies. The Nevada County District Attorney's Office confirmed the incident after defence attorneys identified what appeared to be AI-generated errors in multiple cases.
District Attorney Jesse Wilson stated that a prosecutor had "recently used artificial intelligence in preparing a filing, which resulted in an inaccurate citation". He emphasised that once the error was identified, the filing was immediately withdrawn.
Defence Lawyers Identify Pattern of AI Errors
Attorneys representing defendant Kyle Kjoller have argued that the prosecutors' office used artificial intelligence in other criminal court filings beyond the single admitted instance. In October, Kjoller's legal team filed a motion with California's Third District Court of Appeal requesting sanctions against prosecutors for numerous errors in their filings.
Kjoller, represented by a public defender and the non-profit Civil Rights Corps, saw his sanction request initially denied without explanation. However, his lawyers subsequently identified similar errors in another case handled by the same prosecutors' office.
The defence filed another appeal, which was denied when Kjoller was convicted in his criminal case. His attorneys have now taken the matter to the California Supreme Court, identifying three cases they believe contain errors typical of generative AI.
Legal Scholars Support Challenge to AI Use
Kjoller's attorneys wrote in their petition that "prosecutors' reliance on inaccurate legal authority can violate ethical rules, and represents an existential threat to the due process rights of criminal defendants". Their filing provided examples where prosecutor briefs cited non-existent quotations or misinterpreted court rulings - classic hallmarks of AI hallucinations.
The case has attracted significant attention from legal experts. Recently, a group of 22 scholars, lawyers and criminal justice advocates filed a brief supporting Kjoller's case with the California Supreme Court, which hasn't yet decided whether to hear the matter.
While the Nevada County District Attorney's Office acknowledged using AI in one filing, they denied using it in Kjoller's case, attributing other mistakes to human error. Wilson stated that prosecutors work under "heavy caseloads and time constraints" and that not every citation error stems from AI use.
Following the incident, the office has implemented new training for staff and established an artificial intelligence policy. Wilson confirmed that all attorneys were reminded to verify legal citations independently rather than relying on AI-generated material without confirmation from reliable sources.
This California case appears to be the first instance of a prosecutors' office using generative AI in court filings in the United States. While lawyers in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the US have faced fines for AI use in legal work, those cases typically didn't involve prosecution teams.
