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Tolbert v. State

Court
CA Georgia
Jurisdiction
USA
Decided
2026-01-22
AI tool
Implied
Outcome
Counsel to serve opinion on client and State Bar; CLE; Bar referral
Monetary penalty
None reported

What was hallucinated

Outdated Advice: Overturned Case Law | Counsel relied on Laney for the proposition that a jury must be instructed on particular 'forcible felony,' but the Court noted Laney has been long overruled; citing it without caution was misleading. || False Quotes: Case Law | Appellate brief attributed a purported general rule about accident to Sanders and Shaw, but the Court found neither case discusses accident nor contains the quoted language. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Counsel cited Harris v. State and Ross v. State as supporting insufficiency/self-defense propositions; the Court found these cases do not discuss those issues and do not support the cited propositions. || False Quotes: Exhibits & Submissions | Counsel attributed a prosecutor remark in the brief that does not appear in the transcript; the Court compared the cited page and found the transcript contained different language. || False Quotes: Exhibits & Submissions | Counsel attributed a direct quote to trial counsel about bifurcation that the Court could not find in the record; the Court found trial counsel's actual testimony was different.

Sanction teardown · CA Georgia, USA · 2026-01-22

Tolbert v. State

What happened

In CA Georgia, USA, a filing relied on an unnamed/unconfirmed AI tool to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

  • Outdated Advice (Overturned Case Law)
    Counsel relied on Laney for the proposition that a jury must be instructed on particular 'forcible felony,' but the Court noted Laney has been long overruled; citing it without caution was misleading.
  • False Quotes (Case Law)
    Appellate brief attributed a purported general rule about accident to Sanders and Shaw, but the Court found neither case discusses accident nor contains the quoted language.
  • Misrepresented (Case Law)
    Counsel cited Harris v. State and Ross v. State as supporting insufficiency/self-defense propositions; the Court found these cases do not discuss those issues and do not support the cited propositions.
  • False Quotes (Exhibits & Submissions)
    Counsel attributed a prosecutor remark in the brief that does not appear in the transcript; the Court compared the cited page and found the transcript contained different language.
  • False Quotes (Exhibits & Submissions)
    Counsel attributed a direct quote to trial counsel about bifurcation that the Court could not find in the record; the Court found trial counsel's actual testimony was different.

Which AI tool

an unnamed/unconfirmed AI tool. Note: Charlotin's public database records tool attribution only where a court order, brief, or reporting on the matter states it explicitly; "unidentified" or "implied" means the record indicates AI use but does not name a specific product — we do not guess.

Outcome

Counsel to serve opinion on client and State Bar; CLE; Bar referral

How Citation Safe would have caught this

Citation Safe runs three deterministic layers before a brief is filed: (1) does the citation exist against CourtListener's database of published opinions, (2) if quoted, does that exact language appear in the source, (3) does the cited case actually support the proposition it is cited for. Fabricated case citations fail Layer 1. Fabricated or misattributed quotations fail Layer 2 even when the underlying case is real. Misrepresented holdings — a real case cited for a proposition it does not support — are the target of Layer 3. None of these checks involve asking another language model whether the citation looks right; they are lookups and text-matches against the actual source, which is why a hallucinated citation has to survive a direct lookup against the authoritative source — not another model's opinion — to earn a VERIFIED stamp; our measured false-verify rate is published live at /quality.

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Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/1374/Tolbert_v._the_State_USA_22_January_2026.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/1374/Tolbert_v._the_State_USA_22_January_2026.pdf

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