A Stephens County judge has acknowledged that a ruling he issued contained fictitious case citations generated by artificial intelligence, after prosecutors flagged the fabricated legal authority in a misconduct complaint. Associate District Judge Lawrence Wheeler used OpenAI's ChatGPT for research while drafting the order, which cited two cases that do not exist, according to state records.
The revelation came to light through reporting by Reuters, which detailed how the fake citations surfaced in an order Wheeler drafted while presiding over a family law docket. Stephens County District Attorney Jason Hicks said the misconduct complaint that triggered the review alleged Wheeler secretly listened to jury deliberations, a separate allegation bundled with the AI research concerns. Hicks asked Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond's office on August 17 to either review the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation's report or reassign the inquiry, after Hicks recused himself from investigating Wheeler that same day.
An August 17 letter reported that Wheeler's order contained two citations to cases that do not exist, according to the prosecutor's letter. Drummond's office reviewed the allegations and found the evidence insufficient to prosecute, with a spokesperson saying its criminal division thoroughly reviewed the claims and was not pursuing them further. Wheeler's attorney, Scott Anderson, declined to comment.
Criminal Charges Declined, But Discipline Still Possible
The Oklahoma Attorney General's decision not to pursue charges does not close the door on consequences for Wheeler. Reporting published by the Tulsa World confirmed that Wheeler still faces potential administrative discipline from state judicial authorities even after the criminal review ended without charges. The Oklahoma Supreme Court has the power to discipline judges whether or not there is a criminal violation, and another state judicial body carries the same authority, according to Reuters' reporting.
Oklahoma's disciplinary process runs through the Council on Judicial Complaints, an executive branch body that investigates allegations of judicial misconduct but cannot issue sanctions itself. Instead, per Oklahoma.gov, the council forwards verified findings to the Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court or the Court on the Judiciary, which hold the actual sanctioning power. The council itself told Reuters it cannot comment on or confirm any investigation. The Oklahoma Supreme Court and OpenAI likewise did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Wheeler was elected to the Stephens County bench in 2022. His case also highlights the risks of AI use inside courtrooms.
A Growing Pattern of AI Hallucinations in Courtrooms
Wheeler's case is notable because it involves a sitting judge, not a trial attorney, incorporating fabricated citations directly into an official court order — a distinction from the earlier wave of AI mishaps that mostly implicated lawyers submitting unverified briefs. The foundational case for judicial intolerance of AI-hallucinated law came in May 2023, when the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed Mata v. Avianca, Inc. and ordered a $5,000 fine against attorneys who submitted ChatGPT-generated briefs containing numerous fictitious cases.
The problem has continued since then. An AI Business Weekly report cited hallucination rates of 17 percent to 34 percent for leading legal research tools.
The broader response to AI-generated citations remains an ongoing subject of legal debate.
Against that backdrop, Wheeler's acknowledgment that AI-generated fictions made their way into an actual judicial order — rather than a lawyer's brief — marks an escalation that state judicial authorities in Oklahoma will now have to weigh through their own process, even with the criminal inquiry closed.
