Source: Il Sole 24 Ore (NT+ Diritto)

The Supreme Court, in ordinance no. 11431/2026, declared a criminal appeal inadmissible because the petition relied on jurisprudential citations that the court found to be the probable result of "computer hallucination" arising from uncontrolled use of generative artificial intelligence. The contested case originated from the conviction of a young man for complicity in drug dealing after he was seen approaching a co-defendant during a drug transaction and shouting "zio, zio" when police arrived; trial judges interpreted that phrase as warning the accomplice and facilitating flight, while the defence argued the accused had no role in trafficking because drugs were found only on the co-defendant and the appellant's money was lawful.

Cassazione analysed the defence’s references and observed that, although the cited decisions exist, they do not support the principles attributed to them in the petition; the court identified only one correctly existing ruling (Sez. U, Mannino, n. 33748/2005) and held it did not affirm the principle as claimed, while other citations were misattributed to wrong sections or did not contain the alleged principles. The appeal was found also substantively without merit because its complaints amounted to mere dissent over the fact-finding and assessment performed by the trial judges, an operation barred on legitimacy review. The court reiterated that its review must check compatibility of reasoning with common sense and plausible opinability rather than supplant factual reconstructions, and confirmed that a logically and adequately motivated proof of a conscious, even merely moral, contribution suffices for complicity. With the declaration of inadmissibility the appellant was ordered to pay legal costs and 3,000 euros to the Cassa delle ammende. Cassazione did not condemn the use of AI per se as a research tool but stressed the defender’s professional duty to verify results, warning that citing inaccurate precedents or wrong sections exposes petitions to procedural rejection. The ordinance is presented as one of the first Supreme Court decisions addressing AI-related erroneous citations, whereas prior rulings on the matter had mainly come from courts of merit.