ChatGPT gave lawyers false case citations. Three were removed from a prison lawsuit.
Published
A lawyer asked ChatGPT for court decisions to support two motions in an Alabama prison lawsuit. The citations passed through his legal team and into court filings without being checked. Five were false or misleading. The lawyers for the prisoner who brought the suit spotted them; a federal judge then reprimanded three lawyers and removed them from the case. [1]
The short version
- What happened: ChatGPT supplied legal citations that lawyers put in two court motions without verifying them. Some referred to cases that did not exist. [1]
- Impact: The court reprimanded three lawyers and removed them from the case. It paused proceedings for 30 days so replacement counsel could prepare. Whether the false citations affected the outcome of Johnson's lawsuit is not established. [1]
- Why it matters: False citations reached a signed court filing because no one checked the purported sources as the text passed between lawyers. [1] [2]
Context: ChatGPT in legal research · Federal court · Alabama, 2025
The incident
Frankie Johnson sued Alabama prison officials, alleging they failed to protect him from attacks while he was incarcerated. In May 2025, lawyers for former corrections commissioner Jefferson Dunn filed two motions about gathering evidence. One asked when Johnson could be questioned under oath. Neither decided the truth of his allegations. [3] [1]
Dunn's lawyer Matthew Reeves asked ChatGPT for supporting cases and put the citations into the motions without checking a legal database. William Cranford incorporated Reeves's edits and filed the documents; he said he did not know where the citations came from. Supervising lawyer William Lunsford allowed his name on both motions. He said he reviewed the second but not the first and checked the citations in neither. The court held all three responsible. [1] [2]
On May 15, Johnson's lawyers challenged the citations and suggested AI might be involved. The judge checked for herself and found five problematic citations. One supposed decision, Greer v. Warden, FCC Coleman I, did not exist. Other citations led to real but unrelated cases, or attributed a claim to a case that did not support it. Not every error was an invented judgment. [1]
What the AI did
Reeves told the court the citations came from ChatGPT, and the court accepted his account. The tool supplied references to nonexistent cases, mismatched citations to real cases, and claims those cases did not support. It did not file the motions; the lawyers did. The original ChatGPT exchange is not in the public records reviewed here, so its exact answer cannot be reconstructed. A false citation also does not, by itself, prove the argument it was meant to support was false. [1] [2]
Why it matters
The citations became part of signed federal court filings. A reader would see them as legal authorities, with no indication that they came from ChatGPT or had never been checked. [1]
Reeves used the tool, Cranford filed the edits, and Lunsford let his name appear on the motions. The judge treated verification as each lawyer's responsibility, including those who never used ChatGPT. False authorities, she said, threaten a process that relies on lawyers being candid with the court. [1]
What happened next
After Johnson raised the issue, the judge ordered the lawyers and their firm to explain the citations. They acknowledged ChatGPT's role. The court allowed corrected motions. In July 2025, it publicly reprimanded Reeves, Cranford and Lunsford, barred them from further work on Johnson's case and referred the matter to licensing authorities. The judge also stayed the case for 30 days so Dunn could get new counsel. The order did not suspend the three from practicing before that federal court or impose a fine. It released the law firm and two other lawyers without sanction; the judge separately declined to sanction Dunn, who had not known about the conduct. [1] [2]
Reeves later faced professional discipline in several states, including a public reprimand from the Oklahoma Supreme Court in May 2026 for the same incident. [4]
Incident details
For readers who want to inspect the reconstruction
How it worked
Reeves used ChatGPT to find cases for two legal arguments, including an argument about whether Johnson's deposition could proceed while another discovery dispute was unresolved. He did not check the results in Westlaw or the federal court records system. The citations moved through edits and review into motions filed on May 7 and May 12. The court's order records admissions and testimony about this chain, but not the original AI prompt and answer. [1]
What we know
The judge independently examined five disputed citations. Johnson's lawyers spotted the problem before the court ruled on the motions in their original form. The sanctions concerned false statements in court filings; they were not a judgment that Johnson's allegations about prison conditions were proved. [1] [3]
The Oklahoma Supreme Court's opinion also reports a public reprimand for Reeves in Texas, a public censure in Tennessee and a public reprimand in Alabama, all arising from this same incident. Those three states' original orders were not inspected for this story. The reviewed sources do not establish equivalent later discipline for Cranford or Lunsford. [4]
What remains unclear
The complete ChatGPT exchange is not in the reviewed documents. The court recorded a 30-day pause so new counsel could prepare, but whether the pause or the false citations affected the outcome of Johnson's prison-safety lawsuit remains unclear. [1]
Timeline
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| May 7, 2025 | Lawyers for Dunn file a motion to depose Johnson, including disputed citations. |
| May 12, 2025 | They file a second motion with another disputed citation. |
| May 15–16, 2025 | Johnson's lawyers flag the citations; the judge searches for them and orders an explanation. |
| May 19–21, 2025 | The lawyers acknowledge ChatGPT's role; the court holds a hearing. |
| July 23, 2025 | The court reprimands and removes three lawyers from this case. |
| November 2025–May 2026 | Reeves receives later state discipline for the same incident, culminating in an Oklahoma Supreme Court reprimand. |
The 2025 chronology comes from the federal court's order; the later discipline comes from the Oklahoma Supreme Court's opinion. [1] [4]
Sources
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, sanctions order in Johnson v. Dunn, July 23, 2025. The court's account of the filings, citation checks, lawyers' roles and sanctions. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Butler Snow, response to show-cause orders in Johnson v. Dunn, May 19, 2025. The law firm's account and acknowledgment of the use of ChatGPT; it is a participant's filing. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, memorandum opinion in Johnson v. Dunn, March 12, 2024. Background on the lawsuit, including allegations that were not findings of fact. ↩︎ ↩︎
Oklahoma Supreme Court, State of Oklahoma ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Association v. Reeves, May 27, 2026. Its public reprimand and account of related state discipline for the same conduct; the official court docket confirms Oklahoma's disposition. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎