Tolbert v. The State
Court of Appeals of Georgia · Ga. Ct. App. · Georgia bar guidance
Verified May 6, 2026
- Citation
- Tolbert v. State, No. A25A1439, 2026 WL 178716 (Ga. Ct. App. Jan. 22, 2026)
- Decided
- January 22, 2026
Summary
Appellate counsel J. Mark Shelnutt, representing Terrell Tolbert in a criminal appeal, filed a brief that the panel (Hodges, J., joined by McFadden, P.J., and Pipkin, J.) found "replete with references to cases which do not support the contentions for which he cites them," including fabricated direct quotations attributed to Georgia opinions, citations to authority expressly overruled decades earlier (notably Laney v. State, 184 Ga. App. 463 (1987), disapproved by Holmes v. State, 273 Ga. 644 (2001)), and at least two record citations to quotations that do not appear in the trial transcript. The court deemed all 15 enumerations of error abandoned and declared the appeal frivolous.
- AI tool:
- Unspecified generative AI
What sanction did the court impose?
Judgment affirmed. The court ordered Shelnutt to serve the opinion on his client and on the General Counsel of the State Bar of Georgia for investigation and possible discipline, to file a certificate of compliance within ten days, and to complete at least three hours of CLE focused on brief writing within twelve months or before filing any further briefs in the court, whichever came first. No monetary sanction was imposed because Court of Appeals Rule 7(e)(2) does not authorize one in criminal cases.
Why does Tolbert v. The State matter for law firms using AI?
Tolbert is a useful counterpoint for managing partners who assume AI hallucination risk only attaches when a tool is named in the order. The Georgia Court of Appeals never identifies an AI tool, yet imposes a bar referral and mandatory brief-writing CLE on the basis of conduct, fictive quotations, reliance on long-overruled authority, and miscited propositions, that is now most commonly produced by uncritical use of generative legal research tools. The case also illustrates how citation to overruled authority without flagging negative treatment, the Laney problem here, can independently support discipline even when the underlying argument might have had merit.
Sources
Primary sources
Further reading
Source PDF is a Westlaw printout mirrored from the Damien Charlotin hallucination database. We are working to add the underlying court docket (PACER, CourtListener, or court website) as a second source.
- The opinion does not name a generative AI tool. The hallucination pattern (fabricated quotations, citations to overruled authority cited without negative-treatment flags, miscited propositions) is consistent with unverified AI-assisted drafting, but the court made no factual finding on the source.