Victorian murder trial submissions (Nathwani KC)

What happened

A teenager charged with murder was tried before Justice James Elliott of the Supreme Court of Victoria. He cannot be identified because he is a minor. His defense team, led by Rishi Nathwani, who holds the title of King's Counsel, filed written submissions.

According to the Associated Press report carried by ABC News, the submissions included fabricated quotations from a speech to the state legislature and case citations, purportedly to the Supreme Court, that do not exist. The judge's associates could not find the cases and asked the defense for copies. The lawyers then acknowledged that the citations "do not exist" and that the submission contained "fictitious quotes," according to court documents.

The lawyers said they had checked that the initial citations were accurate and wrongly assumed the rest would be too. The submissions had also been sent to the prosecutor, Daniel Porceddu, who did not check their accuracy. The court documents did not identify the AI system used.

What the court did

Nathwani took "full responsibility" on behalf of the defense team. "We are deeply sorry and embarrassed for what occurred," he told the judge on Wednesday, August 13, 2025. The errors delayed resolution of the case by 24 hours.

On Thursday, August 14, 2025, Justice Elliott found the accused not guilty of murder because of mental impairment. He told counsel: "At the risk of understatement, the manner in which these events have unfolded is unsatisfactory." He added: "The ability of the court to rely upon the accuracy of submissions made by counsel is fundamental to the due administration of justice."

The judge noted that the Supreme Court had issued guidelines on AI use by lawyers the previous year. He said, as reported by CBS News: "It is not acceptable for artificial intelligence to be used unless the product of that use is independently and thoroughly verified." No sanction or referral was reported.

Where it stands

The criminal case was decided. Whether any professional body in Victoria took up the matter was not reported in the sources reviewed as of September 11, 2026. The Associated Press later issued a clarification to its story; its content could not be retrieved, so this entry relies on the text as published by ABC News.

The obligation it engaged

The conduct engaged Clause 3 of the Expert Record Standard (independent authority). The defense's account shows a sampling approach: some citations were checked and the rest were assumed. The clause requires that every citation and every quotation be confirmed, because a system that produces a correct first citation gives no assurance about the next.

The prosecutor's receipt of the submissions without checking them is also part of the record. In a criminal trial each side relies on the other's statements of law. The Standard's governing test is the useful frame. A competent practitioner working from the Victorian law reports and the parliamentary record, and no AI system, could not have produced these quotations.

Sources

• ABC News (Australia), reporting the Associated Press · August 15, 2025
  Senior lawyer apologises after filing AI-generated submissions in Victorian murder case
• CBS News (Associated Press) · August 15, 2025
  Lawyer apologizes for fake quotes, fabricated judgments generated by AI in murder case

What could not be confirmed

The ruling, transcript and court documents were not located. The weekday references in the AP report were converted to August 13 and 14, 2025 by calendar. The AP issued a clarification to the story whose content could not be retrieved. Any regulatory action was not found.