Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Mattathias Schwartz, The New York Times; Sex, Lies and Secrets: A Federal Judge’s Trysts Go Public
"The ensuing investigative report is a chronicle of sex, lies and ethical breaches, much of which is cloaked in secrecy because America’s federal court system affords judges broad deference."
ABA Journal; Prosecutor suspended by state supreme court for artificial intelligence use in court docs
"A Georgia prosecutor who repeatedly filed documents with artificial intelligence-generated citations that referenced cases that were wrong or fictitious during a murder trial has been suspended for six months from practicing before the Georgia Supreme Court.
Law & Crime has the story."
, Georgia Recorder; Georgia librarians could face criminal charges for ‘harmful materials’
George Chidi , The Guardian ; Georgia lawmakers express alarm to see Tulsi Gabbard at FBI elections office raid
"Democratic lawmakers are raising questions about why Tulsi Gabbard, the president’s director of national intelligence, was “lurking” in Fulton county on Wednesday while FBI agents carted off boxes of 2020 election documents.
Gabbard visited an elections hub in Fulton county, home to Atlanta, on Wednesday as the FBI executed a search warrant for records related to the 2020 election. The warrant sought all ballots from the 2020 election in the county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls, according to a warrant obtained by the Guardian.
“My constituents in Georgia – and I think much of the American public – are quite reasonably alarmed and asking questions, after the director of national intelligence was spotted bizarrely and personally lurking in an FBI evidence truck in Fulton county, Georgia, yesterday,” said the senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat. “I encourage all of us on a bipartisan basis to pursue the facts as quickly as possible to understand whether the office of the director of national intelligence is straying far outside of its lane.”
In a statement released on Wednesday, the senator Mark Warner, of Virginia, described Gabbard, a former representative and army veteran known for adhering to widely debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, as “totally unqualified” to be one of the nation’s spymasters, citing her presence in Georgia during “a federal raid tied to Donald Trump’s obsession with losing the 2020 election” as evidence.
Gabbard only had two reasons to be there, Warner said: either she “believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus – in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed’ of relevant national security concerns – or she is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy”."
HAILEY FUCHS, Politico; Ethics watchdog outlines allegations against Georgia Republican’s chief of staff
"A nonpartisan Congressional watchdog is alleging that Brandon Phillips, who has served as Rep. Mike Collins’ chief of staff, hired a romantic interest as an office intern and illicitly used his office’s Congressional resources.
The report from the Office of Congressional Conduct, released Monday, also claims the intern “did not perform duties commensurate with her compensation.”
“Based on the foregoing information, the Board finds that there is substantial reason to believe that Mr. Phillips discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges by participating in the retention of an employee with whom Mr. Phillips had a personal relationship,” the report states...
The House Ethics Committee does not comment on ongoing investigations but said it is currently reviewing the allegations against both Collins and Phillips."
Joe Patrice, Above The Law; Trial Court Decides Case Based On AI-Hallucinated Caselaw
"Between opposing counsel and diligent judges, fake cases keep getting caught before they result in real mischief. That said, it was always only a matter of time before a poor litigant representing themselves fails to know enough to sniff out and flag Beavis v. Butthead and a busy or apathetic judge rubberstamps one side’s proposed order without probing the cites for verification. Hallucinations are all fun and games until they work their way into the orders.
It finally happened with a trial judge issuing an order based off fake cases (flagged by Rob Freund). While the appellate court put a stop to the matter, the fact that it got this far should terrify everyone.
Shahid v. Esaam, out of the Georgia Court of Appeals, involved a final judgment and decree of divorce served by publication. When the wife objected to the judgment based on improper service, the husband’s brief included two fake cases. The trial judge accepted the husband’s argument, issuing an order based in part on the fake cases."
"Yet another coalition of tech titans is forming to fight yet another discriminatory law in yet another Southern state. Top executives from Salesforce, Microsoft and IBM decried on Tuesday a new “religious liberty” law passed in Mississippi that gay rights advocates say legalizes discrimination in the state based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The public statements, little more than condemnations at the moment, could be the first step toward organizing a divestment campaign such as the one currently growing in North Carolina. The announcements came hours after another tech giant, PayPal, said it would cancel plans to expand in North Carolina — a move that was expected to bring about 400 jobs to the state — as a result of the Tar Heel State’s anti-LGBT law."
