{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-11T09:43:22.590Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"voice","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"2025","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":1,"contextualRelations":1,"mixedRelations":1,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2025-chandler-arizona-ai-victim-video-sentencing-vacated","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'FILED 09-30-2026'; 'AFFIRMED IN PART; VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART'; 'we affirm the manslaughter conviction but vacate the sentence for manslaughter, and remand for resentencing'; 'term of 10.5 years’ imprisonment on the count of manslaughter'; 'during a road rage confrontation'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'An Arizona appeals court has upheld the manslaughter conviction of a man who fatally shot another driver during a road rage confrontation, but it has ordered a new sentencing hearing after finding a judge improperly relied on an AI-generated video portraying the victim.'; 'The court affirmed his conviction but vacated his 10.5-year prison sentence and sent the case back to Superior Court for resentencing.'; 'The case will return to Maricopa County Superior Court for a new sentencing hearing.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'will have to be resentenced after the Arizona Court of Appeals vacated his sentence for a 2021 road rage killing in Chandler due to an AI video of the victim affecting the judge'; 'manslaughter conviction is upheld, but the 10 1/2-year sentence is vacated, and he will be resentenced.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On 30 September 2026 the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, affirmed the manslaughter conviction of a defendant who shot and killed a man during a road-rage confrontation, vacated his 10.5-year manslaughter sentence and remanded for resentencing.","causal_attribution":"The disposition stated in the opinion itself, also reported by two Arizona newsrooms, which date the killing to 2021, place it in Chandler and describe the victim as another driver."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"¶53: 'consideration of the AI video so prejudiced'; 'as to render the sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair'; 'Accordingly, we vacate the sentence for manslaughter and remand for resentencing.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'In its decision announced Wednesday, the state Court of Appeals said the sentencing judge was prejudiced by the AI video, which made his decision fundamentally unfair.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'consideration of the AI video so prejudiced'; 'as to render the sentencing procedure'; 'improperly allowed at a sentencing hearing an artificial intelligence-generated video in which the victim is depicted talking about forgiveness and addressing the defendant directly.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The appeals court held that the sentencing judge's consideration of the AI video so prejudiced the defendant as to render the sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair.","causal_attribution":"Holding of the appeals court, read in the opinion; also reported by AZFamily and by the ABA Journal citing Reuters."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'It included some real footage of the victim, but also had an AI-generated version of him delivering statements about his beliefs, forgiveness and his family.'; 'picture and voice profile'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'using a previously recorded video, a picture and a script written by'; 'sister. That video was played during the sentencing.'; 'was sentenced to 10 1/2 years in prison last year'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"¶36: 'recreated through AI that use[d] [his] picture and [his] voice profile'; ¶50: 'created from the imaginings of the victim’s sister'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'His family used voice recordings, videos and pictures of'; 'to recreate him in a video using AI'; 'said she wrote the words that the AI version read in court based on how forgiving she knew her brother to be.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"The video, made by the victim's family and played at the sentencing hearing in 2025, used the victim's picture and voice profile and combined some real footage with an AI-generated version of the victim delivering statements about his beliefs, forgiveness and his family, from a script written by his sister.","causal_attribution":"Description of the video by ABC15 and AZFamily; the BBC reports the sister saying she wrote the words; the opinion confirms the picture and voice profile, the embedded real footage and the sister's authorship, and does not state the date of the hearing."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"¶41: 'I loved that AI. Thank you for that'; 'I feel that that was genuine; that his obvious forgiveness of'; 'For that reason I find the presumptive term [of 10.5 years in prison] is appropriate. That’s more than the State asked for.'; ¶38: 'she asked the sentencing judge to impose a slightly mitigated sentence of 9 years’ imprisonment'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'The sentencing judge later said he \"loved\" the AI video and described it as \"genuine.\"'; 'The judge specifically referenced what he viewed as the victim'; 'the presumptive 10.5 years in prison for manslaughter'; 'a longer sentence than the nine years requested by prosecutors'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'obvious forgiveness'; 'expressed in'; 'before handing down the punishment'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'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.'; 'seemed to appreciate the use of AI at the hearing'; '10-and-a-half years in prison on manslaughter charges.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"The sentencing judge said he loved the AI video, described it as genuine and referred to the forgiveness it expressed, then imposed the presumptive 10.5-year term, longer than the nine years prosecutors had requested.","causal_attribution":"The sentencing transcript as quoted in the appeals opinion; also reported by ABC15 and AZFamily."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"¶53: 'video footage of the victim was permissible, allowing the presentation of the AI video constituted fundamental error'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'The appeals court specifically said the real video footage of the victim was permissible. Its ruling was focused on the AI-generated portions that portrayed the victim saying things he never actually said.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The appeals court said the embedded real video footage of the victim was permissible and that allowing the presentation of the AI video was fundamental error.","causal_attribution":"Stated in the opinion; ABC15 summarises the ruling as focused on AI-generated portions that portrayed the victim saying things he never said."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'He says the new sentence could range from seven to ten and a half years, and the case could still reach the state supreme court.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The defense attorney said the new sentence could range from seven to ten and a half years and that the case could still reach the Arizona Supreme Court.","causal_attribution":"Statement by the defense attorney to ABC15."},{"id":"c7","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"¶1: 'remand for resentencing because the AI video was not reliable'; ¶45: 'only evidence bearing a “minimal indicia of reliability” may be considered at sentencing'; ¶50: 'does not reflect actual events'; 'presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim’s sister'; ¶51: 'It erases the interpretive distance between the family’s belief about what the victim would have said and the victim’s own voice and opinions'; 'No disclaimer could cure that error.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The opinion gives unreliability as the ground: only evidence bearing minimal indicia of reliability may be considered at sentencing, and the AI video, apart from the embedded real footage, does not reflect actual events and presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim's sister, erasing the distance between the family's belief about what the victim would have said and the victim's own voice; the court wrote that no disclaimer could cure that error.","causal_attribution":"Reasoning of the appeals court, read in the opinion."},{"id":"c8","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"¶34: 'did not object to the AI video at sentencing, we review only for fundamental error'; ¶52: 'And it clearly impacted the sentencing judge'; 'While the record does not reflect precisely how the AI video factored into the sentencing calculus, there is no question it played a role.'; ¶48: 'No Arizona case has addressed the admissibility of an'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'no Arizona case has addressed the admissibility of an AI-generated depiction of a victim offered as victim impact evidence'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"The defendant had not objected to the AI video at sentencing, so the court reviewed for fundamental error; the opinion says the video clearly impacted the sentencing judge, that the record does not reflect precisely how it factored into the sentencing calculus and that there is no question it played a role, and that no Arizona case had addressed an AI-generated depiction of a victim offered as victim impact evidence.","causal_attribution":"Stated in the opinion. The opinion does not find that the sentence would have been shorter without the video."},{"id":"c9","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"¶36: 'recreated through AI that use[d] [his] picture and [his] voice profile'; 'is a true representation of who [he] was'; 'not how the courtroom portrayed [him]'; 'I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The opinion records that the AI rendering of the victim explained that it was a version of him recreated through AI using his picture and voice profile, said the video was a true representation of who he was and not how the courtroom portrayed him, and told the defendant that he believed in forgiveness and in God who forgives.","causal_attribution":"The appeals court's account of the video played at sentencing."},{"id":"c10","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"¶37: 'the maximum sentence authorized by the jury verdict'; ¶40: 'impose a mitigated term of 7 years’ imprisonment'; ¶13: 'concurrent, presumptive term of 2.25 years’ imprisonment on the count of endangerment'; ¶1: 'argument that the court erred in precluding text messages obtained from the victim’s phone'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The opinion records that the attorney for the victim's family asked for the maximum sentence authorized by the verdict and defense counsel for a mitigated seven-year term, and that the judge also imposed a concurrent 2.25-year term for endangerment; the court affirmed the conviction after rejecting a challenge to the exclusion of text messages from the victim's phone.","causal_attribution":"The appeals court's account of the sentencing record and its own disposition."},{"id":"c11","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'We were disappointed of course'; 'She says her family is now prepared to go through a second sentencing hearing.'; 'during the spring 2025 sentencing in Maricopa County Superior Court'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"The victim's sister told FOX 10 Phoenix on 1 October 2026 that the family was disappointed by the ruling, and FOX 10 reports that the family is prepared to go through a second sentencing hearing; FOX 10 places the original sentencing in spring 2025.","causal_attribution":"Statement by the victim's sister to FOX 10 Phoenix and FOX 10's own description."},{"id":"c12","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'with the help of artificial intelligence, he returned earlier this month at his killer' (sentence continues: 's sentencing to deliver a victim's statement himself; BBC, 7 May 2025)","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"'Immediately after the sentencing, defense attorney'; 'appealed the decision.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"'In May 2025, FOX 10 reported on the sentencing of'; 'during the spring 2025 sentencing in Maricopa County Superior Court'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'This story comes from our reporting from May of 2025'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The sentencing hearing took place in May 2025 (the BBC, writing on 7 May 2025, says the AI statement was delivered earlier that month; FOX 10 and ABC15 date their reporting on the sentencing to May 2025), and the defense attorney appealed immediately after the sentencing.","causal_attribution":"Dating by three newsrooms; the appeal is ABC15's report of the defense attorney's action. The day of the hearing is not stated in any inspected body."}],"effects":[{"label":"sentencing procedure found fundamentally unfair because the judge considered an AI-generated video of the victim; 10.5-year sentence vacated and resentencing ordered","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.abc15.com/news/arizona-appeals-court-throws-out-sentence-after-judge-relied-on-ai-generated-victim-video","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-02 (ABC15 Arizona, published 30 September 2026 and updated 1 October 2026 according to the page metadata). Own reporting with interviews of the victim's sister and the defense attorney.","independence_group":"abc15"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.azfamily.com/2026/10/01/court-appeals-vacates-chandler-road-rage-sentence-due-ai-victim-video/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-02 (AZFamily, published 30 September 2026 at 5:36 PM MST). Own report of the ruling.","independence_group":"azfamily"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/arizona-appeals-court-says-judge-wrongly-permitted-ai-generated-victim-video","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-02 and re-read on 2026-10-05 (ABA Journal, 1 October 2026), which relays a Reuters story and quotes the opinion; Reuters itself returned HTTP 401.","independence_group":"reuters"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2026/09/30/state_v._horcasitas.pdf","kind":"court_opinion","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in full in English on 2026-10-05: the published opinion of the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, No. 1 CA-CR 25-0191, filed 30 September 2026 (16 pages), from the copy stored by CourtListener. The Arizona courts' own address for the file returned HTTP 403. The case caption, and so this address, carries the defendant's surname; the record text does not.","independence_group":"arizona-court-of-appeals-opinion"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-manslaughter-sentencing-vacated-due-use-ai-victim-impact-statement","kind":"local_tv_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-05 (FOX 10 Phoenix, published 30 September 2026, updated 1 October 2026). Quotes the opinion and carries its own 1 October interview with the victim's sister.","independence_group":"fox10phoenix"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq808px90wxo","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-09 (BBC News, published 7 May 2025 per page metadata). Own reporting with an interview of the victim's sister and a video of the AI statement; dates the hearing to earlier in May 2025.","independence_group":"bbc"},{"id":"s7","url":"https://www.abc15.com/news/region-southeast-valley/chandler/defense-attorney-appeals-after-ai-video-used-in-court-sentencing","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-09 (ABC15 Arizona, published 9 May 2025 per page metadata). Same newsroom as s1; interviews with the defense attorney and the family's attorney.","independence_group":"abc15"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["The day of the May 2025 sentencing hearing. The month rests on the BBC's 7 May 2025 report that the AI statement was delivered 'earlier this month' and on FOX 10 Phoenix's 'In May 2025'; an ABC15 feature dated 5 May 2025 says 'last month', which would place the hearing in April 2025, and no inspected body gives the day.","The AI tools used to make the video; the opinion does not identify them.","How far the video affected the length of the sentence: the opinion says the record does not reflect precisely how it factored in.","The outcome of resentencing, its date, and whether either party seeks review by the Arizona Supreme Court; no resentencing date had been reported by 9 October 2026."],"geography":{"basis":"The sentencing took place in the Superior Court in Maricopa County, Arizona, in May 2025, and the appeal was decided by the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One (opinion; ABC15; AZFamily; BBC). The defendant's residence is not stated, so affected_person_countries stays empty.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a concrete adverse consequence of an AI-generated depiction used in a criminal proceeding: an appeals court found that the video made a May 2025 sentencing fundamentally unfair and vacated the sentence. The ruling is read in the opinion itself and reported by independent Arizona and national newsrooms; names of the deceased victim, his family, the judge and the defendant are left out of the public text and claims. Reviewed on 2026-10-09 to record the AI system's relation to the harmed defendant (the rendering impersonated the victim toward him and informed the judge's sentencing decision about him) and the month of the hearing.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-09"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Output: the appeals opinion describes an artificial-intelligence video rendering of the victim, recreated from his picture and voice profile and played at sentencing with embedded real footage, in which the AI version of the victim addressed the defendant and said he believed in forgiveness (claims c3, c9); ABC15, AZFamily, FOX 10 Phoenix, the BBC and the ABA Journal (relaying Reuters) describe the same AI-generated video, made by the victim's family from a script the sister wrote. The tools are not identified. Relation to the affected person: the rendering impersonated the deceased victim toward the court and addressed the defendant directly, so the defendant is a person toward whom generated material impersonated someone else (depicted_or_impersonated). Human use: the sentencing judge said he loved the AI video, felt it was genuine and pointed to the victim's obvious forgiveness before fixing the term (c4), and the opinion finds that the video clearly impacted the judge and played a role in the sentencing calculus (c8), so the AI output informed the judge's sentencing decision about the defendant (informed_decision_about). Consequence: the judge imposed the presumptive 10.5-year term, more than the State asked for (c4), and the appeals court held that his consideration of the AI video made the sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair and vacated the sentence (c2, c5). The opinion does not find that the sentence would have been shorter without the video (c8).","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["depicted_or_impersonated","informed_decision_about"]},"name":"Arizona appeals court vacates a manslaughter sentence, holding that an AI-generated video of the deceased victim made a 2025 sentencing fundamentally unfair","summary":"At a sentencing hearing in May 2025 in Maricopa County Superior Court, Arizona, the family of a man killed in a 2021 road-rage shooting in Chandler played a video that combined real footage with an AI-generated likeness and voice of the victim delivering a script written by his sister, including statements of forgiveness addressed to the defendant. The judge said he loved the video, described it as genuine and referred to the forgiveness it expressed, then imposed the presumptive 10.5-year term for manslaughter, longer than the nine years the prosecutor had requested. The defense attorney appealed immediately. On 30 September 2026 the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the conviction but vacated the sentence, holding that the AI video was not reliable and that the judge's consideration of it so prejudiced the defendant that the sentencing procedure was fundamentally unfair. The opinion says the record does not show precisely how the video factored into the sentence, and that there is no question it played a role. The case returns to the trial court for resentencing; as of 1 October 2026 no new sentencing date had been set.","incidentDate":"2025-05-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-09-30","aiSystem":"Unidentified AI tools used by the victim's family to generate a likeness and voice of the deceased victim from a recorded video, a picture and a written script","aiProduct":"Unidentified video tool","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["legal_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The Arizona Court of Appeals held, in a published opinion of 30 September 2026, that the sentencing judge's consideration of an AI-generated video of the victim at the May 2025 hearing prejudiced the defendant and made the sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair, vacating his 10.5-year sentence and ordering resentencing.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person: the defendant whose sentencing the appeals court found fundamentally unfair. He did not use the AI tool, so he is counted among people harmed through others' use. The victim's family is not counted because no harm to them from the AI video is reported. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-AZ","platformType":"other","outcomeStatus":"pending","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.abc15.com/news/arizona-appeals-court-throws-out-sentence-after-judge-relied-on-ai-generated-victim-video","primarySourceLabel":"ABC15 Arizona, 30 September 2026: \"Arizona appeals court throws out sentence after judge relied on AI-generated victim video\"","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-02T03:20:58.232078+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-09T03:23:23.878144+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["ai-video","arizona","courts","deepfake","informed-decision","justice","others-use","sentencing","victim-impact-statement"]}]}