Bringing the Payne

On May 5, 2026, the Supreme Court of Georgia did three things in a single opinion that are worth reading carefully. It suspended an assistant district attorney's privilege to practice before the court for six months for filing briefs and a proposed order containing AI-generated citations the attorney had not independently verified. It vacated a trial court's order denying a criminal defendant's motion for new trial because that order — drafted by the prosecutor — contained the same fabricated authorities. And it admonished both the individual attorney and the Clayton County District Attorney's Office, drawing a two-justice partial dissent that would have spared the office. (Payne v. State, No. S26A0459 (Ga. May 5, 2026).)

For practitioners, this is not just another AI hallucination case. It is among the most severe AI-related practice sanctions imposed by a state supreme court to date, and it documents what happens when verification failures migrate from counsel's brief into a court's adopted ruling.

What the record shows

After the Court's March 20, 2026 supplemental briefing order, ADA Deborah Leslie filed a March 27, 2026 affidavit acknowledging she had used AI software to draft the State's briefs and the proposed order denying Payne's motion for new trial. (Payne, slip op. at 2.) The affidavit identified problematic citations across three filings: nine cases the Court had flagged as nonexistent or misattributed; twelve additional cases in trial-court briefing that counsel identified herself as AI-generated and unverified; and nine authorities in the State's appellate brief withdrawn as "cited for propositions not supported by the actual holdings of those decisions; case citations that do not correspond to existing Georgia or federal precedent; and/or case quotations that do not accurately reflect the language of the cited opinions." (Id. at 3.) At least 30 problematic citations across three filings.

At least one citation — Bryant v. State, 268 Ga. App. 362 (2004) — appears not to exist at all. Hamm v. State, 294 Ga. 791 (2014) — exists, but does not stand for the proposition cited. Both appeared in the trial court's adopted order. (Id. at 3 n.2.)

A footnote in the opinion documents an additional element. At oral argument, when the Court asked counsel whether the fabricated citations had been included in the version of the proposed order submitted to the trial court, counsel responded: "No, your honor, I do not believe so, they were not. I did prepare an order. That order was revised." The record contradicted the response. (Id. at 2 n.1.)

What the Court was protecting

The opinion is explicit on the legal standard. "While we have no rule against the responsible use of artificial intelligence software by attorneys, citing cases that do not exist or do not support the proposition for which they are cited is a violation of this Court's rules and falls far beneath the conduct we expect from Georgia lawyers." (Id. at 3.) The Court grounded its sanctions authority in Supreme Court Rule 7, its inherent authority, and OCGA § 15-1-3(4). (Id. at 4.) Rule 7 provides that "Parties and counsel are responsible for ensuring that their filings with the Court, including briefs, shall be carefully checked for truthfulness and accuracy as the rules already require." (Id.)

The sanctions package layers practice-affecting consequences. ADA Leslie's privilege to practice before the Sup. Ct. Ga. is suspended for six months. (Id. at 4.) Reinstatement requires twelve hours of CLE beyond regularly required hours, on ethics, brief writing, and "the proper use of artificial intelligence software in the legal system." (Id. at 4–5.) A petition for reinstatement is required. (Id. at 5.) Footnote 4 expressly preserves the State Bar of Georgia's separate disciplinary authority. (Id. at 5 n.4.) The trial court's order is vacated; the new order "shall not be prepared by counsel for either party." (Id. at 5.)

The candor thread

Justice LaGrua, joined by Justice Colvin, concurred with the suspension and the individual admonishment but dissented from the admonishment of the District Attorney's office. The dissent identified the underlying duty as Rule 3.3 (candor toward the tribunal). (Id. at 7.) The framing matters. The verification failure is a Rule 11–type problem in federal practice; in Georgia practice it sits within Rule 7 and the underlying obligation of competence. The misrepresentation at oral argument — which the majority documents in footnote 1 — sits within Rule 3.3. Payne is one of a small number of recent decisions treating these as analytically distinct violations. Fuller v. Hyde Sch., No. 2:25-cv-00354-SDN (D. Me. May 5, 2026), decided the same day, separates them similarly: there, the federal court treated late disclosure of AI use as a candor problem distinct from the underlying verification failure.

What this asks of practitioners

The Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, like the Model Rules, establish a structure that Payne effectively makes concrete. Rule 1.1 (competence) extends to the technology a lawyer uses, including AI tools used in research and drafting. Rule 5.3 (supervision of nonlawyer assistance) extends to oversight of AI output. Rule 3.3 (candor) governs what is said about AI-assisted work product, both in filings and in real time when challenged. Payne documents what happens when none of these obligations is supported by a record at the time the work was done. The Court's findings rest on what counsel acknowledged, not on what counsel could produce.

The procedural ruling is also worth attention. The instruction that the new order "shall not be prepared by counsel for either party" (Id. at 5) is an institutional response to a structural problem: AI-generated authority drafted by counsel can migrate into a court's ruling without independent judicial review of every citation. That ruling reaches every Georgia litigator who drafts proposed orders, not only the sanctioned attorney.

What documented oversight would have produced

The record gap in Payne is the documentation that should have existed before the brief was filed and the proposed order was submitted. A passage-level verification log — which authorities were checked, by whom, against which sources, on what date — would have been the contemporaneous record the Court's findings now point to as absent. An attorney-signed sign-off at the time of filing would have been the affirmative attestation Rule 7 already contemplates. A record of AI use, available at the moment of inquiry, would have anchored the candor analysis the majority and the dissent both treat as central.

Documented oversight does not prevent a hallucination. It produces the record an attorney needs when one occurs. Payne describes what happens when that record is not there.