The Supreme Court of Georgia Strongly Encourages Trial Courts to Carefully Review Proposed Orders With the Understanding That AI Software May Have Been Used to Prepare Them

The Supreme Court of Georgia decided No. S26A0459 on May 5, 2026. It is an appeal in a murder case. The court names the people involved. This article does not. Parts of the opinion follow, not the whole.

The Citations

After the trial, the defendant moved for a new trial. The assistant district attorney assigned to the case filed a brief in response that, the court says, "contained non-existent cases and cases that do not stand for the proposition asserted in the brief." In an order the court says was largely prepared by that prosecutor, the trial court denied the motion, and that order "contained citations to non-existent cases and cases that do not stand for the proposition asserted in the order." On appeal, the same prosecutor once again cited cases that, in the court's words, "do not stand for the proposition asserted."

After oral argument, the court directed the State to explain how the trial court's order came to include "nine case citations that either do not exist or do not stand for the propositions for which they are cited." In a supplemental brief and affidavit, the prosecutor acknowledged using artificial intelligence software to draft the State's briefs opposing the defendant's motion for new trial and the trial court's proposed order denying that motion. She acknowledged that the case citations generated by the software "were not independently verified before inclusion in the State's briefs or proposed order," and said she had put safeguards in place so that fictitious or misattributed authorities would not appear in any future filings.

She identified "12 additional cases" in the briefing before the trial court that she acknowledged were generated by the software, were not independently verified, and did not stand for the propositions for which they were offered. She also withdrew reliance on "nine authorities cited in the State's December 16, 2025 appellate brief" before the court.

Not independently verified.

The Rule and the Sanctions

The court says it has "no rule against the responsible use of artificial intelligence software by attorneys," but that "citing cases that do not exist or do not support the proposition for which they are cited is a violation of this Court's rules and falls far beneath the conduct" it expects of lawyers in the state. It quotes its own Rule 7: "Parties and counsel are responsible for ensuring that their filings with the Court, including briefs, shall be carefully checked for truthfulness and accuracy as the rules already require."

The court admonished the prosecutor and the district attorney's office "for failing to verify the accuracy of case citations and then including a substantial number of inaccurate case citations in their filings before this Court and the trial court." It suspended her privilege to practice before it "for six months," and made reinstatement depend on "12 hours of continuing legal education" beyond the hours regularly required to maintain active membership in the State Bar of Georgia, in sessions on ethics, brief writing, and the proper use of artificial intelligence software in the legal system.

Not every justice joined all of it. Two concurred in part and dissented in part, declining to admonish the elected district attorney, who had written to the court to apologize and to describe the steps her office was taking. The majority answered that it had not admonished the district attorney individually but rather her office, since the filings at issue were submitted on behalf of that office.

Proposed Orders

Because the trial court's order "contains numerous fictitious or misattributed case citations," the court vacated it and sent the case back with instructions to prepare and issue a new order. That order "shall not contain any fictitious or misattributed case citations," and "the trial court's order shall not be prepared by counsel for either party."

The court added a word for trial courts. "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 opinion strongly encourages careful review of proposed orders and does not say what that review should look like. What would a judge need to see to know which citations in a draft were checked, and by whom?