State v. Horcasitas (Pelkey AI victim impact statement)

What happened

Christopher Pelkey was shot and killed on November 13, 2021, in a road-rage incident in Chandler, Arizona. Gabriel Paul Horcasitas was convicted of manslaughter. At the sentencing hearing on May 1, 2025, Pelkey's sister, Stacey Wales, presented a victim impact statement in the form of a video in which a generated likeness of Pelkey, with a synthesized voice, addressed the court and the defendant.

NPR reported that Wales wrote the script and made the video with her husband, Tim Wales, and a business partner, Scott Yentzer, using several AI tools that were not named. The generated Pelkey said, among other things: "To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances." The words were the family's; the voice and face were generated.

What the court did

Judge Todd Lang of the Maricopa County Superior Court received the video with the other statements. As quoted by ABC News, he said: "I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness. I feel that that was genuine." He sentenced Horcasitas to 10.5 years, which NBC News reported was the maximum of a 7 to 10.5 year range and which Judicature reported was more than the prosecution had requested.

Defense counsel Jason Lamm told reporters he had not been given advance notice of the video. He filed a notice of appeal and told NPR that the question was "to what extent did the trial judge rely on the AI video in fashioning a sentence."

Where it stands

The appeal was decided on September 30, 2026. In a published opinion in State v. Horcasitas, No. 1 CA-CR 25-0191, the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, affirmed the manslaughter conviction and vacated the sentence. Presiding Judge D. Steven Williams wrote for the panel, joined by Judge Anni Hill Foster and Vice Chief Judge David D. Weinzweig. The opinion's first paragraph states: "We vacate the manslaughter sentence and remand for resentencing because the AI video was not reliable."

Because the defense did not object at sentencing, the court reviewed for fundamental error. It distinguished the genuine video clips of Christopher Pelkey embedded in the presentation, which it held permissible, from the generated portion, which it said "does not reflect actual events" and "presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim's sister." The generated video, it wrote, "erases the interpretive distance between the family's belief about what the victim would have said and the victim's own voice and opinions," and "No disclaimer could cure that error." Pointing to the sentencing judge's remarks, it concluded that the video "played a role," that allowing it "constituted fundamental error," and that its consideration rendered the sentencing "fundamentally unfair."

As of October 8, 2026, no mandate had issued. The appellate docket shows the time for a motion for reconsideration and for a petition for review to the Arizona Supreme Court still running. The court did not direct that resentencing take place before a different judge. The Arizona Supreme Court had told ABC15 earlier that AI has "great potential" but can "hinder or upend justice if used inappropriately."

The obligation it engaged

A victim's family is not a professional witness, and defense counsel himself told NPR that victims have an "unfettered right" to share their views at sentencing. The obligations in the Expert Record Standard fall on the professionals in the room. Checkability, Clause 4, is the one most directly engaged. The statement presented words in a dead man's voice that he never spoke. A listener could not check the attribution against anything, because there was nothing to check it against. A tribunal weighing such a statement, and counsel responding to it, can check only the script and the family's authorship of it, which is why advance disclosure of the form, Clause 8, matters to the other side.

The defense objection as reported was about notice and about reliance. Both go to whether the court and the parties knew, before the video played, what kind of material it was.

Sources

• Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One · August 6, 2026
  Docket, State v. Horcasitas, No. 1 CA-CR 25-0191
• NPR · May 7, 2025
  Family shows AI video of slain victim as an impact statement — possibly a legal first
• NBC News · May 2025
  Road rage victim 'speaks' via AI at his killer's sentencing
• ABC News · May 2025
  Murder victim 'speaks' beyond the grave in AI generated video at sentencing
• ABC15 Arizona · May 9, 2025
  Defense attorney appeals after AI video used in court sentencing
• Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One · September 30, 2026
  State v. Horcasitas, No. 1 CA-CR 25-0191, opinion

What could not be confirmed

The AI tools used were not named in sources opened. The appellate docket was last observed as updated August 6, 2026; no decision was located. Sources do not say whether prosecutors knew of the video in advance. Fox 10 reports an endangerment conviction in addition to manslaughter; other sources mention manslaughter only. The briefs themselves were not opened, so whether the video is among the issues presented was not confirmed. The appellate opinion was read in full; the trial-level sentencing minute entry was still not located.