Two federal judges use AI to draft judicial decisions

Last month, in response to an inquiry from Senator Chuck Grassley, two federal judges admitted that staff members used generative Artificial Intelligence to draft court orders. In July, both judges had to rescind their “error-filled” decisions after lawyers called their attention to fabricated testimony and case law citations.

Mississippi’s Judge Henry Wingate admitted that his law clerk had used an AI program called Perplexity to draft the decision, which misnamed the defendants and plaintiffs, misquoted state law, and referenced a case that didn’t exist. The decision was then placed on his docket without undergoing the usual review process. New Jersey’s Judge Julien Neals identified an intern as the source of his “error-ridden” AI draft, which had similarly been placed on his docket without being reviewed.  

Grassley “commended” Wingate and Neals for their honesty while calling on the judiciary to adopt stricter policies regarding the use of AI. “We can’t allow laziness, apathy or overreliance on artificial assistance to upend the Judiciary’s commitment to integrity and factual accuracy,” the senator said in a statement. 

ChatGPT and the legal system

Since ChatGPT launched in 2023, unauthorized AI use has become a plague on the American legal system. The legal system relies on two forms of law: statutory, drawn from laws passed by Congress and similar legislative bodies, and case law, based on prior court decisions. The problem with using AI to draft legal papers is that it can misrepresent both.

ChatGPT and similar AI programs are language models designed to generate text. When a lawyer asks ChatGPT to draft a brief, ChatGPT will imitate the style of briefs it has access to, including the briefs’ discussions of case law and statutes. However, because ChatGPT is more concerned with generating text than it is with factual accuracy, it often “hallucinates” case law and misstates statutes, just as it did in Wingate’s decision.  

When lawyers–and their subordinate staff–use AI to draft papers for the court, they play a dangerous game. Each state bar association has a rule prescribing a “duty of candor” toward the court, one which calls on lawyers to ensure that all information in their filings is accurate and truthful. 

Lawyers also have a an obligation to ensure that all non-lawyers working for them comply with the duty of candor. So if a lawyer submits an intern’s AI-drafted brief as his work without ensuring that the information is accurate, he bears the blame, both for presenting the court with inaccurate information and for failing to ensure that his intern complied with the duty of truthfulness. 

However, similar standards do not appear to be in place for judges. 

A grave issue of fairness

Neither Wingate nor Neals will face disciplinary action for failing to review their decisions for inaccuracy and for failing to ensure that their subordinate staff did not use AI. 

And while both judges have adopted more stringent review measures to ensure that ChatGPT-generated decisions don’t reach their docket again, both got away with blaming their subordinate staff for the entire mishap. 

The use of AI in the judiciary raises a grave issue of fairness from a legal standpoint. As Senator Grassley pointed out, using AI-generated misstatements of law to decide cases will  “violate litigants’ rights” and “prevent fair treatment under the law.” However, the lack of standards for judges—and these particular judges’ lack of personal accountability for failing to review their own decisions—raises an important question of responsibility, one we can learn from in our walk with God. 

How accountability heals 

Blame-shifting is as old as sin itself. When God confronted Adam and Eve after they disobeyed him, Adam pointed the finger at his wife, saying, “The woman you put here with me gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Eve likewise blamed the serpent, who “deceived” her into eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:14). 

However, neither Adam nor Eve escaped the consequences of their sin, despite their efforts to push blame elsewhere. God held them both responsible and banished them from the Garden (Genesis 3:23).

Refusing to take responsibility for our sins is, clearly, not how God calls us to act. For one thing, it’s a form of lying. It’s also damaging to our souls. 

In Revelation 3, Jesus chastised the church in Laodicea for this very sin: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17). If we don’t admit our faults, they cannot be healed, and we are left vulnerable to the ravages of continued sin. 

The good news is that Jesus, the Great Physician, didn’t come for the healthy, but the sick (Luke 5:31). John wrote that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us” and will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Owning our wrongdoing is the first step toward healing, and God will not despise a heart that is broken and contrite over sin. (Psalm 51:17)

But what happens in cases of joint responsibility?

Our first responsibility

In those times when someone else played a role in our broken situation, our first responsibility is always to own our own wrongdoing. Jesus told us to “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5). From there, we are to “go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone,” only bringing in outside parties if he will not listen (Matthew 18:15-17). 

While there are times when someone else’s wrongdoing may need to be disclosed to the appropriate authorities, there are other times when “covering an offense seeks love, but repeating a matter separates close friends” (Proverbs 17:9). We must rely on the Holy Spirit’s guidance to know the difference, letting “all we do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:19). 

Where can you take responsibility for your own shortcomings today? What broken parts of you will you let God heal? And where can you respond to someone else’s failings with the grace you’ve been shown?