This case illustrates the peril. An attorney who, by his own counsel's admission, was sophisticated in his understanding of AI tools permitted a non-attorney staff member to use a public generative AI platform to prepare an appellate filing. The AI tool fabricated transcript quotations—attributing specific, inflammatory statements to a real prosecutor that were never spoken. The attorney filed the document without verifying its contents. When the fabrications were identified, he did not correct the record. [...]
Malikhi Coleman's lawyer applied to reopen his client's criminal appeal on the ground that the prosecutor had said something inflammatory at trial. The prosecutor had said no such thing: the page the filing cited for the quotation was the court reporter's signature page, which carries no statements by anybody. What puts this one past carelessness is everything that came after, which the order sets out below. Decided 20 March 2026. A 2,000 US dollar fine, credited against the 2,000 already paid to settle the prosecutor's fee claim, referral to Ohio's Office of Disciplinary Counsel, six hours of continuing legal education on the ethics of AI, apology letters, and for two years a signed certification on every filing in any Ohio court that its citations are real and its quotations have been checked against the original.
Judge Eugene A. Lucci, Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eleventh District, in CourtListener