Punishment Update: Prosecutor Learns Her Fate After Using Fake Case Law

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hey everyone. So, I have an update for you on the case of the prosecutor getting caught in front of the Georgia Supreme Court using fake case law. Um, I have prior videos on it. You can go look it up. It was all over the news. Well, today, May 5th, we have gotten a decision from the Georgia Supreme Court, and I'm not going to drag it out till the end. I will tell you, they suspended her. Um, and there's some great language in there about what they think about what happened. And um it's also interesting that the Georgia Supreme Court justices didn't even all agree on what should happen under these circumstances. So I'm going to break down the opinion for you. But first, just in case you missed the um heartstoppping video of her getting called out for using fake case law, here it is.

[00:00:47]>> So before you sit down, there's one more thing I need to ask you about.

[00:00:50]Unfortunately, um, in reviewing the trial court's order denying the motion for new trial, there are at least five citations to cases that don't exist. And there's at least five more citations to cases that do not support the proposition for which they're cited, including three quotations that don't exist.

[00:01:14]My understanding is that you prepared the order for new tri uh the denial order for the trial court. Were those citations in the version of the order that you submitted to the trial court?

[00:01:27]>> No, your honor, I do not believe so.

[00:01:29]They were not. I did prepare an order.

[00:01:32]That order was revised.

[00:01:36]>> So those those non-existent cases were cited in your initial brief opposing the motion for new trial.

[00:02:00]Your honor, I'm not aware of that, but I would be glad to research that and provide the court with a supplement.

[00:02:11]>> Okay. We'll we'll get a briefing order out directing uh what you need to supplement with.

[00:02:17]>> Okay. Thank you.

[00:02:18]>> Thank you. So, after that painful moment happened, um there were pleadings that were filed by both the state and the defense. I did a prior video on it, but to give you the short skinny on it really quickly, the state did the ADA um Lesie did come clean. She said yes, I used AI. Um, she laid out all the cases where she had not done her homework on them and some of them were fictionalized. And what I didn't like about her pleading, and I said it in my prior video, is she also used that opportunity to argue the state's position again that the um the conviction should stand. And as I said, you only get a limited amount of words to present your argument in writing to a court. And so for her taking this extra opportunity based on her own massive screw-up, I thought was really inappropriate. The defense also um filed something and one of the things that they pointed out was the court had told the state to provide copies of all communications with the trial court um to them and to the defense. and they didn't provide anything associated with the fact that DA Mosley, who's the head DA, the elected DA in Clayton County, had reached out to the trial court to apologize because the trial court ended up using this fake case law in their order that had been given to them by the ADA. Um well, when Mosley apologized to the court, she didn't provide any of those communications to the defense. And the defense was like, "Yeah, look, you're supposed to provide me with everything and you didn't." and he got kind of a snarky response back um from DA Mosley saying I didn't have to basically provide this to you. So I want you to keep that in mind because now we're going to move forward in the timeline. So after all of those pleadings, one more thing came out and that was this. This is a letter from Da Mosley to the Georgia Supreme Court which is a written apology letter talking about um the the mistakes that were made and how she wasn't happy about it. And but she says while the post-trial filings in the case of state v Hannah Payne did not meet the high standards of this office, we still believe the facts and the law support the conviction. Again, got to stop right here. Inappropriate to be arguing your position yet again to the Supreme Court when you are, you know, disguising it as an apology letter and again, you only have a certain amount of words that you are allowed to use to make your argument. And yet the state is continuing to take these inopportune moments to make their argument yet again. And then she goes on to say, "I have spoken to the family of the victim in reference to our team members failure to comply with this office's policy and assured them that my office will continue to work diligently to protect the integrity of this conviction."

[00:05:05]Now, we get to the nitty-gritty. She talks um about artificial intelligence and policies in their office, but says, "Additionally, strict disciplinary action has been taken against the attorney, including but not limited to a grievance with the State Bar of Georgia, suspension, performance plan development, loss of privileges, etc." So, this is our first kind of clue into what the DA's office did to punish ADA Leslie. And it it sounds like she was suspended. We don't know for how long.

[00:05:38]Um, we don't know what kind of loss of privileges she had, but she was suspended. So, now we fast forward to what the Supreme Court had to say today.

[00:05:50]So, what you're looking at is page two of the Supreme Court opinion on this that came out today, May 5th. Don't worry, not going to read the whole thing to you. We're going to hit the highlights here. Here on page two, they say, "While we have no rule against the responsible use of artificial intelligence software by attorneys, citing cases that do not exist or do not support the proposition for which they are cited is a violation of this court's rules and falls far beneath the conduct we expect from Georgia lawyers." They go on to say, "The matter poses a serious concern for us and for the integrity of these proceedings and calls for us to exercise our inherent authority to control these proceedings in the furtherance of justice as well as the authority granted to us by Supreme Court rule 7 to sanction attorneys who violate our rules." So basically what they're saying is this is not okay and we need to put our thumb down on it right now so it doesn't happen again. Um, they go on in paragraph 2 to admonish ADA Leslie and the Clayton County District Attorney's Office for failing to verify the accuracy. And just keep in mind because we're going to talk about that in a minute. Now, moving on, here's the um the meat of it all. We hereby suspend ADA Deborah Lesley's privilege to practice before the Supreme Court of Georgia for 6 months. As a condition of the reinstatement of such privilege, ADA Lesie must obtain and certify that she has completed an aggregate of 12 hours of continuing legal education beyond the hours regularly required to maintain an active membership in the state bar of Georgia consisting of sessions on ethics, brief writing, the proper use of artificial intelligence software in the legal system upon expiration of the suspension and completion of the imposed continuing legal education requirements.

[00:07:32]ADA Leslie shall demonstrate compliance with this order in a petition for reinstatement. Continued failure to ensure the accuracy of filings before this court may subject counsel to additional sanctions. So, let me just break that part down for you because as if you're not a practicing lawyer, I'm not sure you will understand how incredibly insulting that is to someone who is an appellet lawyer. Number one, if you're an appellet lawyer and you've been suspended from the Supreme Court, you can still practice in the trial courts and in the Court of Appeals, but it goes at the heart of your ability to um handle file appeals in the Supreme Court. Yes, it's only 6 months, but I mean, that's a substantial chunk of of time for an appellet lawyer, especially someone who has a lot of appeals going on. The the meteor part of it to me is the continuing legal education. Not that it's a big deal to do it, but what they are saying to you is you need to brush up on ethics and brief writing. It's insulting to someone who's been a lawyer for a long time to say you need to go back and get some extra training. Um it it's just really an insult to me. I get why they did it. I'm just if I were Deborah Lesley, I would say that that hits pretty hard um to me. And that she has to reapply to get back in. She has to say to them, "All right, here I I've done all of these things. will you please let me in? Um and any continued failure to assure assure the accuracy of filings, meaning if she ever does this again, she's going to be subject to um much bigger sanctions. So if you'll remember, we also know that Mosley a DA Mosley had suspended her for an unknown period of time and there was a grievance filed with the state bar. Does that mean she's going to lose her license forever to practice law? Probably not. I don't see that happening. We just have these two suspensions, one from her boss and one from the Supreme Court of Georgia.

[00:09:30]Now, let's get back into the opinion.

[00:09:33]With regard to what's going to happen to the case, they say, "We hereby vacate the trial court's order and remand the case to the trial court with instructions that it prepare and issue a new order on Payne's motion for new trial. The trial court's order shall not contain any fictitious or misattributed case citations. And given the unfortunate circumstances that have led us to this point, the trial court's order shall not be prepared by council for either party. We strongly encourage trial courts to carefully review proposed orders with the understanding that artificial intelligence software with all of its potential risks and benefits may have been used to prepare such proposed orders. This is a huge slap at the trial court for missing the fact that the case law that it used that came from the ADA um was fake. This is incredibly insulting to the trial court as it should be. They are saying you need to rewrite your order without fake case law. You are going to do it on your own without any help from either of the parties. And going forward, we need to remind you to doublech checkck all the citations, Mr. or Mrs. trial court judge. Um because AI is out there now and these things are going to happen potentially again. So huge swipe at the trial court. Let's move on.

[00:11:01]Payne's motion to clarify filed on March 27th, 2026. So, this was the thing that I told you before that the defense had filed after the oral argument debacle is hereby granted. This court previously ordered council for the state to produce all communications it had with the trial court concerning the proposed order denying Payne's motion for a new trial.

[00:11:21]to the extent there is a letter, email, or other written communication by or on behalf of the Clayton County District Attorney to the trial court concerning the proposed order, including an apology for the submission of the proposed order. That communication falls within the scope of our order and shall be provided to the court and to council for pain without delay. So, if you remember, I told you that the defense council had pointed out in their pleading their motion to clarify. Hey, look, you told me e that I would get all the communications from the state and here we have DA Mosley saying she apologized to the trial court and I don't have any record of it. And DA Mosley saying, well, you don't get to have a record of that. That's not applicable. The Supreme Court is saying it is indeed applicable and you need to produce it immediately to me and to the defense. So, big slap at DA Mosley. So, we have seen ADA lessly punished by her boss and by the Supreme Court. We have seen the trial court get slapped at by the Supreme Court for for missing it. And we have seen um DA Mosley basically be slapped down and told you better provide all of these communications. From a standpoint of the appeal itself, you need to understand that by them telling the trial court they need to rewrite their appeal, they've dialed back the timeline a bit because now once the trial court has written its new order on the motion for new trial. Now, I suspect we are going to have to see a whole new set of briefs that are rewritten based on whatever the trial court's uh decision-m was that will then need to be appealed up to the Supreme Court again so that now with a clean record, they can make decisions on the substance of the appeal itself. But before I leave you, I want to tell you one more thing um that's really interesting that has to do with the fact that these Supreme Court justices couldn't even agree with each other. So what you're looking at here is the disscent by Justice Lua. And let me just tell you really quick, Supreme Court justices don't always agree with each other. Of course, we know that. And so when a justice doesn't agree, they can issue their own opinion saying, "I don't agree, and here's why." Or they can issue an opinion that says, "I agree, but for different reasons, and that's called a concurrence." So check this out. This disscent written by Justice Lagrua says, "I must descent as to the admonishment of the elected Clayton County District Attorney. While I recognize that the district attorney's name appears on the briefs, and she ultimately bears responsibility for the actions of those who work for her, I also understand that she must be able to trust and rely upon her staff to do their jobs ethically and professionally."

[00:14:05]In this instance, the district attorney sent a lengthy letter to this court copying um copied to opposing council apologizing for the conduct of the district assistant district attorney and outlining the severe sanctions imposed on that attorney for her actions.

[00:14:20]So what she is saying is I don't think we should have called out DA Mosley. DA Mosley has already apologized and she put her trust in in her staff and it's not her fault. I'm shocked by this.

[00:14:32]First of all, what is the big deal to me in I I don't understand in calling out the the office of the district attorney generally because the buck stops with the boss, the person who's in charge.

[00:14:46]They are responsible for what their staff does. So, here's where it gets kind of funny. The majority in writing their opinion, they read the descent first and they put this footnote in here where they say, "We acknowledge the Clayton County District Attorney's Office sent a letter apologizing They say this, the dcent relies upon this letter in support of its position that we should not admonish the district attorney. First, we have not admonished the district attorney individually, but rather admonished her office since ADA Leslie submitted the filings at issue on behalf of that office. Second, we are puzzled by the descent's reference to the district attorney as the quote elected district attorney close quote.

[00:15:28]All district attorneys in Georgia are elected and that status has no bearing on their obligations to the court in which they practice or are obligations faced with misconduct arising out of their offices.

[00:15:41]So, it's very funny to me that these justices are publicly sniping at each other in writing. I mean, they said, "We don't understand why you even called her the elected district attorney. They're all elected district attorneys." It's just really snarky. Um, so now you can see um all the things that have flowed from one district attorney using AI and not checking her references. All the trouble, trouble for the trial court, trouble at the Supreme Court level.

[00:16:13]She's been suspended by her boss, by the Supreme Court, all of this stuff. And the case is not even over yet. So I will keep you updated.