A Wisconsin court sanctioned a Republican prosecutor on Friday for failing to disclose using artificial intelligence (AI) in legal filings.
Judge David Hughes dismissed dozens of property damage and theft-related counts against two men in Kenosha County and chided Republican Kenosha District Attorney Xavier Solis’ office for the AI usage, court records show. Hughes pointed out “hallucinated and false citations” in the prosecution’s court paperwork.
Solis and Robert Pelegrin, the assistant district attorney assigned to the case, did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
The district attorney’s office charged Cornelius Garrett and Christain Garrett with 71 combined counts of felony burglary and other offenses in 2023, according to court records. The Friday ruling came in response to a motion from defense attorney Michael Cicchini’s that alleged that prosecutors had no probable cause to charge the defendants. Solis’ office may still re-file the cases.
Judge Hughes granted Cicchini’s motion based on insufficient evidence the district attorney’s office presented at a hearing about two years ago, when it was led by former Democratic Kenosha County District Attorney Mike Graveley, Cicchini told the DCNF.
Solis won an uncontested GOP primary election and beat Democratic challenger Carli McNeill in 2024 after campaigning on what he called “law and order” priorities. His term ends in December 2028.
The case is not the first time a lawyer has gotten in trouble for using AI in the U.S. A Kansas federal judge fined and sanctioned attorneys in a patent case on Feb. 2 for submitting AI-influenced material with “repeated instances of hallucinated case citations and quotations, and strong misstatements of authority,” court records show.
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