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Argentina: appeal chamber annulled a robbery judgment after the judge left a generative-AI chat phrase in it; Chubut's high court revoked the annulment

On 4 June 2025 a criminal judge in Esquel, Chubut province, convicted a defendant of simple robbery and imposed two years and six months of effective imprisonment. On 15 October 2025 the Penal Chamber of Esquel annulled the judgment and the trial, ordering a new trial before another judge. The chamber found that the ruling contained a pasted phrase from a generative-AI assistant (“Aquí tienes el punto IV reeditado, sin citas y listo para copiar y pegar”), that the AI had been used on the rulings on the nullity of two essential pieces of evidence, and that the judge had not exercised human supervision or recorded the use. Perfil's headline describes the assistant as ChatGPT and La Nación's text as presumably ChatGPT; the quoted ruling and the prosecution office statement refer only to a generative-AI assistant. The chamber referred the judge's conduct to the Chubut Superior Court of Justice for ethical and disciplinary review. On 13 March 2026 the Chubut Superior Court of Justice, ruling on a complaint appeal by the case's prosecutors, revoked the annulment, holding that a judge's use of support tools, technological or not, does not by itself invalidate a judgment without a concrete prejudice to the parties, and returned the case to the Esquel chamber, with a different composition, to hear the defence's appeal against the conviction (Revista Quórum, Clarín, Diario Judicial).

AI system
ChatGPT (reported)
Occurred
4 Jun 2025 to 15 Oct 2025
Reported
16 October 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Informed a human decision about the person
Reported harm
Legal Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Justice
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts
6 claims: 6 reported. 7 open questions
People reported harmed
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

AI system as recorded: Generative AI assistant (reported as ChatGPT)

Reported harm

Per press reports, the appellate chamber annulled the trial and conviction because of the judge's undisclosed generative-AI use and ordered a retrial; the chamber described serious consequences for the parties, the public and the State. Five months later the Chubut Superior Court revoked the annulment, so the conviction's appeal must be heard again. The effect on the defendant is not reported.

Outcome

15 October 2025: the Esquel Penal Chamber annulled the judgment and trial and ordered a new trial before another judge, referring the judge's conduct to the Chubut Superior Court. 13 March 2026: the Superior Court revoked the annulment on the prosecutors' complaint appeal and sent the case back to a differently composed chamber to hear the defence's appeal. The result of that review and of any disciplinary review is not reported.

What remains unknown

  • The full text of the ruling was not read (the Errepar copy is gated), so all findings are as reported by three outlets that share the same underlying ruling.
  • The share of the judgment written by the assistant is unknown. The chamber said the pasted text leaves a gap too wide to tell.
  • The specific AI product is not established. No chat log was seen.
  • The annulment date of 15 October 2025 is derived from La Nación's 'el miércoles' (article of 17 October 2025) and the metadata of a gated Errepar ruling page; no cited article states the date.
  • The defendant's own view of the annulment and any effect of the delay on the defendant or on other parties to the case is not reported.
  • The result of the renewed appeal before the differently composed Esquel chamber and of any disciplinary review of the judge is not reported.
  • The Superior Court ruling of 13 March 2026 was not read; its content is as reported by Revista Quórum, Clarín and Diario Judicial.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. The appellate chamber, as quoted by three outlets, found a pasted chat phrase in the ruling and concluded that a generative-AI assistant was used. The chamber described delegation of the decision as probable. The assistant's text was pasted into the judgment the judge signed, so its output informed the judge's decision about the defendant (informed_decision_about); in March 2026 the Chubut Superior Court held, as reported, that the pasted phrase did not by itself prove the judge had delegated the decision. The product name ChatGPT is stated by one outlet as presumed and by another without qualification.

6 claims: 6 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported On 4 June 2025 a criminal judge in Esquel convicted a defendant of simple robbery and sentenced the defendant to two years and six months of effective imprisonment, and the Penal Chamber of Esquel later annulled that judgment.

Causal attribution. Sources give the annulment as the chamber's response to the judge's AI use.

Reported The judgment contained the phrase “Aquí tienes el punto IV reeditado, sin citas y listo para copiar y pegar”, which the chamber took to show generative-AI use, including on the rulings on the nullity of two essential pieces of evidence.

Causal attribution. The chamber's finding, as quoted in the press, connects the phrase to AI use. The full ruling text was not read.

  • lanacion.com.ar(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    Aquí tienes el punto IV reeditado, sin citas y listo para copiar y pegar
  • documento.errepar.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    el magistrado utilizó la IA generativa, ni más ni menos, que en un aspecto central de la resolución en crisis como es la resolución de las nulidades de dos pruebas esenciales en el proceso
  • perfil.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    el juez de primera instancia incluyó accidentalmente una frase que revela el uso de un asistente de Inteligencia Artificial (IA) generativa
Reported The chamber annulled the judgment and the preceding trial and ordered a new trial before another judge, and barred the prosecution from showing at the new trial the videos omitted at the first.

Causal attribution. The annulment is attributed by the chamber to the judge's undisclosed and unsupervised AI use, which the chamber said prevented control of the judge's reasoning.

Reported The chamber referred the matter to the Chubut Superior Court of Justice to investigate the judge's conduct and said the judge may have breached that court's confidentiality rules by including the names of parties, witnesses and experts in the text processed by the assistant.

Causal attribution. The confidentiality point is the chamber's stated possibility and was not established as fact.

  • lanacion.com.ar(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    remitir las actuaciones al Superior Tribunal de Justicia de Chubut (STJ), que deberá investigar el alcance ético y disciplinario de la conducta
  • perfil.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    pudo haber incumplido los recaudos de confidencialidad exigidos por el Acuerdo Plenario N° 5435 del STJ, al incluir nombres de las partes, testigos y peritos en el texto procesado por el asistente
Reported Press coverage identifies the assistant as ChatGPT (La Nación as presumed, Perfil without qualification).

Causal attribution. The ruling as quoted refers to a generative-AI assistant. The product name comes from the press.

Reported On 13 March 2026 the Chubut Superior Court of Justice, on a complaint appeal by the case's prosecutors, revoked the annulment, holding that a judge's use of support tools does not by itself invalidate a judgment unless a concrete prejudice to the parties is shown, and returned the case to a differently composed Esquel chamber to hear the defence's appeal.

Causal attribution. Three outlets report one Superior Court ruling; the ruling text was not read; reported.

  • revistaquorum.com.ar(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'El Superior Tribunal de Justicia de Chubut revocó la nulidad que había dictado la Cámara en lo Penal de Esquel y sostuvo que el uso de herramientas tecnológicas por parte de un juez no invalida automáticamente una sentencia si no se demuestra un perjuicio concreto para las partes.'
  • clarin.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'Al resolver una queja presentada por las fiscales del caso, el máximo tribunal provincial revocó la nulidad'; 'El fallo del Superior, firmado el 13 de marzo por cinco de sus seis ministros'; 'con una integración distinta a la que había dictado la nulidad'
  • diariojudicial.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
    'Las fiscales del caso recurrieron la nulidad. Al serles denegado el recurso por la propia Cámara, presentaron queja directamente ante el Superior Tribunal de Justicia.'

Sources

6 sources inspected, from 2 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Full body read in the original Spanish (17 October 2025) by the reviewing agent without a human translator. Reports the appellate ruling; whether the journalist saw the ruling text is not stated. Applies to s1.

Article body is embedded in the page data and was decoded into bodies/gh-4-body.txt (16 October 2025). Read in Spanish without a human translator. It quotes the ruling. The linked full text of the ruling (documento.errepar.com/jurisprudencia/...) is gated and was not read. Applies to s2.

Full body read in Spanish (17 October 2025) without a human translator. It relays a statement of the Ministerio Publico Fiscal of Chubut and quotes the ruling. Applies to s3.

Read in Spanish on 2026-10-24 from the publisher page (HTTP 200); translated by the research agent (an AI); no human translator reviewed it. Reports the Superior Court ruling of 13 March 2026; the ruling text itself was not read. Applies to s4.

Read in Spanish on 2026-10-24 from the publisher page (HTTP 200); translated by the research agent (an AI); no human translator reviewed it. Reports the same Superior Court ruling and gives its signing date. Applies to s5.

Read in Spanish on 2026-10-24 from the publisher page (HTTP 200); translated by the research agent (an AI); no human translator reviewed it. Legal-news report quoting the Superior Court ruling; the ruling text itself was not read. Applies to s6.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Argentina.

The court is the Penal Chamber of Esquel in Chubut province, and La Nación calls the ground for the annulment unprecedented in Argentine justice. The defendant's residence and where the judge used the assistant are not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-24: Three Spanish-language outlets report the appellate ruling that annulled a criminal judgment and trial after a pasted assistant phrase exposed undisclosed generative-AI use; three further outlets report that the Chubut Superior Court revoked that annulment in March 2026. Each ruling is carried by one reporting chain, so claims are attributed. The effect on the defendant is not reported.

People reported harmed in this case

Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

The chamber refers to serious consequences of the annulment for 'los justiciables' (the parties to the proceeding), the public and the State without a count. No inspected source reports harm to the defendant specifically, and annulment of a conviction may be favourable to the defendant.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#annulment-revoked

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Argentina: appeal chamber annulled a robbery judgment after the judge left a generative-AI chat phrase in it; Chubut's high court revoked the annulment. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-ar-esquel-criminal-judgment-annulled-judge-generative-ai-draft

BibTeX

@misc{2025_ar_esquel_criminal_judgment_annulled_judge_generative_ai_draft,
  title = {Argentina: appeal chamber annulled a robbery judgment after the judge left a generative-AI chat phrase in it; Chubut's high court revoked the annulment},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-ar-esquel-criminal-judgment-annulled-judge-generative-ai-draft}
}

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