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Incident 1196: Judge Reportedly Disqualifies Butler Snow Lawyers Following Purported Use of ChatGPT-Fabricated Citations in Alabama Prison Litigation

Description: Three Butler Snow attorneys defending a former Alabama corrections commissioner were reportedly disqualified after two motions cited five non-existent cases generated via ChatGPT. Judge Anna Manasco is reported to have publicly reprimanded the lawyers, referred them to the Alabama State Bar, and ordered broad disclosure; she declined to sanction the firm. An external review of 2,400 citations across 330 filings reported no further errors.

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Alleged: OpenAI developed an AI system deployed by Butler Snow , Matthew B. Reeves , William Cranford and William Lunsford, which harmed Butler Snow , Matthew B. Reeves , William Cranford , William Lunsford , Frankie Johnson , Alabama Department of Corrections , State of Alabama , Judicial integrity , Epistemic integrity and General public of Alabama.
Alleged implicated AI system: ChatGPT

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1196
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2025-05-07
Editors
Anonymous User

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceAlabama paid a law firm millions to defend its prisons. It used AI and turned in fake citationsJudge disqualifies three Butler Snow attorneys from case over AI citations5 hallucinated cases lead federal judge to kick 3 Butler Snow lawyers off case
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Alabama paid a law firm millions to defend its prisons. It used AI and turned in fake citations

Alabama paid a law firm millions to defend its prisons. It used AI and turned in fake citations

theguardian.com

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Judge disqualifies three Butler Snow attorneys from case over AI citations

Judge disqualifies three Butler Snow attorneys from case over AI citations

reuters.com

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5 hallucinated cases lead federal judge to kick 3 Butler Snow lawyers off case

5 hallucinated cases lead federal judge to kick 3 Butler Snow lawyers off case

abajournal.com

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Alabama paid a law firm millions to defend its prisons. It used AI and turned in fake citations
theguardian.com · 2025

In less than a year and a half, Frankie Johnson, a man incarcerated at the William E Donaldson prison outside Birmingham, Alabama, says he was stabbed around 20 times.

In December of 2019, Johnson says, he was stabbed “at least nine times” …

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Judge disqualifies three Butler Snow attorneys from case over AI citations
reuters.com · 2025

A federal judge in Alabama disqualified three lawyers from U.S. law firm Butler Snow from a case after they inadvertently included made-up citations generated by artificial intelligence in court filings.

U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco in …

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5 hallucinated cases lead federal judge to kick 3 Butler Snow lawyers off case
abajournal.com · 2025

Three Butler Snow lawyers may no longer represent a former corrections commissioner in Alabama because they filed two motions with five "completely made up" case citations produced by ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence applicatio…

Variants

A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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