Payne v. State

What happened

Hannah Payne was convicted in 2019 of murder and related charges in the shooting death of Kenneth Herring. On September 12, 2025, the Clayton County trial court entered an order denying her motion for new trial. According to the Supreme Court of Georgia, that order was prepared by Assistant District Attorney Deborah Leslie.

On appeal, the Supreme Court identified 9 errant citations in the State's brief and in the trial court's order: cases that do not exist, or that do not say what they were cited for. ADA Leslie then identified 12 more. In a supplemental brief and affidavit filed March 27, 2026, she acknowledged that she had used artificial intelligence software to draft the State's briefs and that the citations it generated were not independently verified before they were included.

What the court did

On May 5, 2026, the court vacated the trial court's order and remanded the case with instructions that the trial court "prepare and issue a new order on Payne's motion for new trial." It added that the new order "shall not be prepared by counsel for either party" and must not contain fictitious or misattributed citations.

The court suspended ADA Leslie's privilege to practice before the Supreme Court of Georgia for 6 months and required her to complete 12 hours of continuing legal education in ethics, brief writing and the use of AI in law before reinstatement. It also wrote: "We admonish ADA Leslie and the Clayton County District Attorney's Office for failing to verify the accuracy of case citations." Justices LaGrua and Colvin dissented from the admonishment of the District Attorney's office. Atlanta News First reported Justice Land's statement that the court has "no rule against the responsible use of artificial intelligence software by attorneys."

Where it stands

The motion for new trial is back before the trial court, which must decide it again in an order of its own preparation. No reporting of the new order was found as of September 2026. The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of Payne's appeal. The trial judge was not named in the sources reviewed.

The obligation it engaged

Two professionals are involved, and the conduct engaged Clause 3 of the Expert Record Standard for each. The prosecutor put citations into briefs and a proposed order on the authority of a system, without confirming them against the reported cases. The trial court then signed that order. The Supreme Court's remedy speaks to Clause 2, non-delegation: it required that the court's reasoning on remand be the court's own work and not text drafted by a party.

For an expert witness the parallel is direct. Counsel may offer draft language, and a system may offer draft language. Neither becomes the expert's opinion until the expert has formed it and confirmed every authority it rests on. The affidavit here also shows the value of Clause 7. A contemporaneous record of which system produced which text would have let the prosecutor locate every affected citation at once, rather than in 2 rounds.

Sources

• FindLaw (opinion text) · May 5, 2026
  Hannah Renee Payne v. The State, No. S26A0459
• Atlanta News First · May 5, 2026
  Georgia Supreme Court orders redo in Hannah Payne case over AI citations
• Court TV · May 5, 2026
  Payne appeal sent back to trial court as justices sanction prosecutor for AI use

What could not be confirmed

The court's own PDF (gasupreme.us, S26A0459) was located but could not be opened; the opinion was read through FindLaw. The trial judge was not identified. The sources opened describe AI use in drafting the State's briefs; whether the same software produced the text of the proposed order is not separately stated. The AI product was not named.