Source: Newsweek

A federal judge in Michigan admonished the Department of Justice after finding that a government filing in an ICE detainee’s habeas corpus challenge appeared to cite a nonexistent Sixth Circuit decision, Taylor v. Hott, raising the possibility the citation was generated by artificial intelligence. Chief U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou of the Western District of Michigan raised the issue in a three-page order dated July 16 in a habeas case brought by detainee Izzeddin Ahmed Abdulgahffar Daghra, who challenged the government’s automatic stay of a bond order. The judge noted the government had argued the Sixth Circuit holds that federal courts cannot “reweigh the evidence underlying a bond decision or second-guess the Immigration Judge’s discretionary judgment,” but attributed that proposition to the cited case, which the order indicates does not exist.

Judge Jarbou dismissed the case as moot after the stay expired and the government said Daghra could be released upon posting a $35,000 bond, while also addressing the problematic citation and warning against AI-driven fabricated authorities. The judge cautioned that attorneys using AI must scrupulously review AI-generated work product to confirm cited cases exist and are accurately represented, and declined to impose sanctions but warned the government to prevent future filings from containing nonexistent legal authorities. The order referenced a similar prior incident in April when U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II publicly reprimanded former federal prosecutor Rudy Renfer for a brief that used generative AI and contained false quotations, erroneous citations and mischaracterizations of case law.