The Georgia Supreme Court has disciplined Clayton County Assistant District Attorney Deborah Leslie for using artificial intelligence tools that generated fake and misleading case citations in a murder case ruling. The court barred Leslie from appearing before justices for six months and ordered additional legal ethics education.
Justice Benjamin Land stated that citing non-existent cases violates court rules, emphasizing that such conduct falls far below expected standards.
This case is among rare instances involving a prosecutor's misuse of AI, where fabricated citations were adopted in a lower court’s 2025 order denying a new trial for murder defendant Hannah Payne. Payne was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of Kenneth Herring.
The state’s high court vacated the earlier ruling and directed a new order without fictitious citations. Payne’s lawyer, Andrew Fleischman, noted that the misconduct delays legitimate appeals.