Judge slams police for using AI to write legal argument, citing nonexistent laws
‘I thought I had seen everything,’ says judge after defense says police investigators used AI to write bogus legal justification for keeping defendant’s seized phone
Israel Police recently used artificial intelligence to prepare arguments for a criminal case, utilizing a large language model AI like ChatGPT and citing legislation that does not exist in Israel’s legal code, Hebrew media reported Tuesday.
According to the reports in Hebrew media, Judge Ehud Kaplan of the Hadera Magistrate’s Court reacted in astonishment to the police’s argument, saying: “I thought I had seen everything in 30 years on the bench.”
The case in question centers on Ibrahim Mahajne, a resident of Wadi Ara who is being investigated on suspicion of money laundering, embezzlement and tax fraud by the Lahav 433 major crimes unit.
Mahajne’s phone was among several belongings seized during the investigation, with police saying it was necessary evidence in their probe of the case.
In court, the defendant’s lawyers requested his phone be returned to him, arguing that it was a crucial part of his business due to the fact that it is connected to the security and alarm system, saying that the system cannot be operated without his phone.
Mahajne claimed that his business was broken into recently, and the alarm was never triggered because his phone was not connected to the security system.
According to the reports, Mahajne’s lawyers noticed that in the police’s argument against returning his device, they cited laws that do not exist in Israel’s legal code.
During the hearing, Mahajne’s attorney Tamir Calderon told the court that he “suspects that the police response was taken from ChatGPT. The sections of law cited do not exist.”
Embarrassed, the police representative told the court that the defense team was right, and that the made-up law was cited “by mistake.”
“We take it back. What was quoted is incorrect. Whoever wrote this did so in good faith, by mistake,” they said. “We admit that there was a mistake.”
Astonished, Judge Kaplan said: “If I thought I had seen everything in the 30 years I have been on the bench, I must have been wrong.” He emphasized that “one of those ‘laws’ has not even existed in anyone’s imagination until now,” and that even a Google search for such a law doesn’t yield any results.
According to the reports, the judge then told the police to copy the data from the cell phone in question to a blank device, ordering them to return the original device to Mahajne within five days.
Responding to the incident, a police representative said that the legal argument was “written contrary to accepted practice,” and that the commander of the unit in charge of the investigation ordered a probe into the incident “to prevent the recurrence of similar cases in the future.”
The Times of Israel Community.