Argentine appeals court annuls conviction after judge used ChatGPT to draft ruling
An Argentine judge used ChatGPT to draft a criminal conviction without disclosure, accidentally revealing the practice through an AI prompt visible in the ruling. The appeals court annulled both the conviction and trial, and referred the judge for ethical investigation.
What happened
On 4 June 2025, Judge Carlos Rogelio Richeri of Esquel, Argentina, issued a criminal conviction sentencing Raúl Amelio Payalef to two years and six months in prison. The ruling was drafted with assistance from ChatGPT without disclosure.
The Cámara Penal de Esquel discovered the undisclosed use when the judge accidentally included a phrase from the AI interaction in the judgment text: 'Aquí tienes el punto IV reeditado, sin citas y listo para copiar y pegar' (Here you have point IV re-edited, without citations and ready to copy and paste). The court found that the judge had not exercised mandatory human oversight or control over the AI-generated content.
Reported impact
The appeals court annulled both the sentence and the trial preceding it, determining that delegation of judicial decisions to automated systems violates the principle of natural judge and the prohibition against delegating adjudicatory functions to machines. The court stated that the lack of disclosure and absence of any record of what was requested from the AI made it impossible to trace the judge's reasoning.
The Cámara Penal de Esquel noted that the undisclosed use may have violated confidentiality rules requiring protection of parties', witnesses', and experts' identities in digital handling of judicial information. The use of an online assistant allegedly exposed personal and sensitive data outside the judicial system.
Index analysis
The judges determined that the gap between AI-generated and judge-authored text was too broad to determine authorship percentages, and that the failure to disclose the AI use prevented reconstruction of the judicial reasoning. The omission of mandatory human supervision combined with the undisclosed delegation created what the court characterized as a 'dogmatic or unmotivated' decision.
Governance controls
The court ordered the case to be retried before a different judge. The Cámara Penal de Esquel referred the matter to the Superior Tribunal de Justicia de Chubut to investigate the ethical and disciplinary implications of Judge Richeri's conduct and the scope of consequences from the AI misuse.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
This record was researched and written by the Index from original reporting. Its sources are still being verified by an editor, and they are listed here once that check is complete. Until then the record carries no reviewer.