United States v. McGee: a federal judge fines a court-appointed defense lawyer $5,000 for AI-hallucinated citations produced by a Microsoft Word plug-in called Ghostwriter Legal (2025)

The problem

In two consolidated federal criminal cases against Glennie Antonio McGee — a drug-conspiracy case (No. 1:24-cr-112) and a financial-fraud case (No. 1:24-cr-113) — McGee’s court-appointed CJA counsel, attorney James A. Johnson of Loxley, Alabama, filed a July 3, 2025 motion to continue that contained fabricated case citations. The prosecution flagged “several nonexistent cases,” false quotations, and precedent the Supreme Court had reversed more than 40 years earlier — citations that “bear the hallmarks of legal authorities ‘hallucinated’ by artificial intelligence.” Judge Terry F. Moorer ran his own searches and confirmed “the cases do not exist.”

What was built

Johnson told the court he normally uses Fastcase, but in this instance “he used a Microsoft Word plug-in called Ghostwriter Legal to find additional cases to support the motion.” He disclaimed ChatGPT — yet, as the government pointed out, “the very information from Ghostwriter Legal made it clear that it used ChatGPT as its default AI program.” He inserted the returned cases without verifying them. This is the distinctive corpus detail: the AI here was not a standalone chatbot but a research plug-in embedded in Word.

The outcome

On October 10, 2025, acting under the court’s inherent authority, Judge Moorer sanctioned Johnson. The order is explicit that it does not rest on Alabama Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3 (“the Court will not look to Rule 3.3 for its authority”) or Local Rule 83.3(i); Rule 11 is cited only by comparison. The decretal terms:

• “The Court IMPOSES a fine in the amount of $5,000.00 payable to the CJA fund to offset some of the losses because of this matter.”
• A public reprimand with a publication requirement across Johnson’s other pending and future cases for twelve months, and submission of the order for publication in the Federal Supplement;
• Referral to the district’s advisory panel to consider removing Johnson from the CJA panel;
• A referral to the Alabama State Bar.

The court found the conduct “tantamount to bad faith.”

Because this was a criminal case with appointed counsel, the fabrications carried a cost most AI-sanction cases don’t. Asked whether he wanted to keep Johnson, defendant McGee answered “No, sir, I’m not.” New counsel had to be appointed, resetting both trials to January 5, 2026 and February 23, 2026 — the order calls it “a delay of roughly five and six months on the cases” (footnote 2) — and drawing further on limited public CJA funds.

Why this is here (and what “verified” would require)

This is an AI-governance honest-negative — a court, an independent adjudicator, attaching a dollar figure and a discipline referral to AI output used without verification. It is the mirror image of a verified deployment win, and it underscores the platform thesis: unverified AI content is a liability; provenance and checking are the value.

Green-badge verification is not claimed. It would require a human to (1) confirm on the live S.D. Ala. docket that the October 10, 2025 order is final/unappealed — FOX10 reports Johnson is appealing — and (2) ideally attach an archive-bound capture of the primary order itself.

Sources

• Primary: United States v. McGee, Nos. 1:24-cr-112-TFM / 1:24-cr-113-TFM (S.D. Ala., Oct. 10, 2025), Memorandum Opinion and Order on Sanctions, Moorer, J. — FindLaw full-text reprint (retrieved and quoted this session).
• Independent #1: Bloomberg Law, Jennifer Kay, “Fake AI Citations Produce Fines for California, Alabama Lawyers,” 2025-10-13 (archive-bound, byte-tied).
• Independent #2: FOX10 News / WALA-TV (Mobile), “‘It is just wrong’ – federal judge fines, chastises Loxley lawyer for AI snafu,” 2025-10-13 (archive-bound, byte-tied).