Important to note that this was not a decision on the merits. The court didn’t find that the decision was written by AI; just that the facts alleged would be covered by judicial immunity. Proper action is to appeal, and file a grievance with the Nevada Council of Judicial Discipline, possibly also the Nevada Bar Association. Those institutions take these things seriously, and the judge can end up with her license suspended or even disbarred. A license suspension, even a short one, is very serious for a judge. A judge is forbidden from having any other employment, so a judge under suspension isn’t getting a salary and can’t get other employment. So it’s a pretty significant monetary penalty.
The US justice system is a farce, 90% of the time it is merely used as an extortion racket to fund the cops, courts, and local jail. Corruption is rampant, friends of the court regularly get away with breaking the law, and the only two considerations cops use when arresting people is will it make their fragile ego feel better, and will the charges result in a significant profit for the court/cops.
Funny this comes up because I just watched it last night. It has 24% on Rotten Tomatoes which is pretty accurate. Not quite sure why it was made or why the actors involved signed up for it.
The film is framed as sci fi, but this decision underlines that right now, any judge has the freedom to replace themselves with a chatbot, in part or in full.
Well, at least they don't expose themselves to civil liability by doing so. The system is generally designed so that judges don't have to answer to the participants in the cases they are presiding over. That doesn't mean they don't answer to anyone.
In U.S. history only 8 federal judges have been convicted and removed. In a normal year the number is zero, out of ~870. For state judges, about 11 are removed per year out of ~30,000. They can be held accountable, but it takes something extraordinary, and worst case they retire early. If a judge confesses to full self-replacement that might do it. Too many load bearing emdashes wouldn't be enough.
All officers of the court have various forms of immunity. All of the rights, rules, and statutes they are required by law to uphold only goes as far as how much of that in group someone is, or how much money someone has to uphold their rights when infringed upon.
In practice the entire system has become political, corrupted or both. As a result, the only rights most people have are those where officers of a court are only limited by where their immunity ends. They can and do violate the law and ignore large parts of it if it suits them.
Assuming someone has the resources to even get any oversight at all, in most cases those involved will investigate each other and decide they have done nothing wrong. Even in the unlikely event that someone proves an illegal act, they will just claim immunity.
To be removed as a judge you have to do shit so egregious, like taking kickbacks from the prison industry to sentence children into their custody and work programs, to the point it is an open secret (where your own Facebook shows you hanging out with the CEOs of such companies, and your conviction rates and sentencing for juveniles is so far on the curve it couldn't possibly be coincidence) and even then it will take YEARS, all the while you go on doing it.
"Probably" would be impeached? The bar for impeachment and recall would appear to be exceptionally high, often rising to the level of "national news coverage and extended outrage" (witness the judge on the Brock case).
This was an interesting and engrossing film with an attractive sci-fi/AI setting, whose moral and theme, of course, had absolutely nothing at all to do with AI.
Different rules for the rulers and the proles has been a big part of life on Earth for eternity. Why shouldn't we be surprised that this judge thinks it's okay to do things that a grade schooler can't.
Right, there needs to be procedural grounds for appeal, and this case is entirely about the judge violating procedural rules by delegating away their judgement. It's a perfect example of a case for an appeals court.
This is how you get vigilante justice. It is only held back by people believing that the state will treat them fairly in a court. Once the majority no longer believe that, you get chaos. I am entirely sure we do not want that. The correct action would be to make an EXTREME example of this judge: disbarment, prison, etc...
This is just how the US legal system works. When a judge has made a terrible decision for dumb reasons, you appeal it, you don’t sue the judge. There’d be a similar result if you sued a judge for ruling against you at the instructions of their cult leader or something.
>> When a judge has made a terrible decision for dumb reasons, you appeal it
This is not how the legal system works. You need grounds for the Appeal - such as procedural - AND need to get another court to agree with your grounds AND be willing to have the case heard again. None of these are gimmes, and they all take time and money.
This definitely how the US system works. The core job of the appeal court is correct errors of law.
Your other criticisms are valid, such as time, money and there is definitely deference to lower court judges. But the recourse for a judge misunderstanding the law (for AI or any reason) is the appeal process.
And there are processes for disciplining and even removing judges who fail to uphold their responsibilities. A private lawsuit simply isn't venue for doing so.
But did the judge make the decision?
I think there's a real question of whether this is a failure of due process rights. But I also think supreme Court Justices need to be awake for the court to actually hear arguments, so what do I know.
IANAL, but my understanding is that Judicial immunity in the US is absolute; if a Judge orders the police to beat up a defense attorney, they cannot be sued for it[1].
That is what the article and judgement was about- they can certainly use that argument to appeal the case, but not to hold the judge in the case personally liable.
But of course a court can't dismiss someone's complaint on the grounds that they're nuts; in order to rule on the substance of this case, a court would have to conduct new hearings to gather all the details about the original hearing in which AI was allegedly used. The purpose of judicial immunity is to push all objections to judicial decisions through the appellate courts, which don't have to re-hear everything before issuing a ruling.
The wasn't a single opinion presented in that very short article. It was largely quoting and restating what happened- the judge isn't personally liable via civil suit.
Other articles by volokh might be intentionally incendiary (I haven't read them) but this one is as bland as bland gets.
Important to note that this was not a decision on the merits. The court didn’t find that the decision was written by AI; just that the facts alleged would be covered by judicial immunity. Proper action is to appeal, and file a grievance with the Nevada Council of Judicial Discipline, possibly also the Nevada Bar Association. Those institutions take these things seriously, and the judge can end up with her license suspended or even disbarred. A license suspension, even a short one, is very serious for a judge. A judge is forbidden from having any other employment, so a judge under suspension isn’t getting a salary and can’t get other employment. So it’s a pretty significant monetary penalty.
I just read a story of a guy trying to prompt inject his court submissions to win because he thought the court was using AI. I guess he just got the wrong judge: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/suspecting-court...
As far as I can tell, the use of AI is alleged but not proven, as the case is dismissed without deciding that point.
The US justice system is a farce, 90% of the time it is merely used as an extortion racket to fund the cops, courts, and local jail. Corruption is rampant, friends of the court regularly get away with breaking the law, and the only two considerations cops use when arresting people is will it make their fragile ego feel better, and will the charges result in a significant profit for the court/cops.
This is a film, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_(2026_film)
Funny this comes up because I just watched it last night. It has 24% on Rotten Tomatoes which is pretty accurate. Not quite sure why it was made or why the actors involved signed up for it.
The film is framed as sci fi, but this decision underlines that right now, any judge has the freedom to replace themselves with a chatbot, in part or in full.
Well, at least they don't expose themselves to civil liability by doing so. The system is generally designed so that judges don't have to answer to the participants in the cases they are presiding over. That doesn't mean they don't answer to anyone.
In U.S. history only 8 federal judges have been convicted and removed. In a normal year the number is zero, out of ~870. For state judges, about 11 are removed per year out of ~30,000. They can be held accountable, but it takes something extraordinary, and worst case they retire early. If a judge confesses to full self-replacement that might do it. Too many load bearing emdashes wouldn't be enough.
All officers of the court have various forms of immunity. All of the rights, rules, and statutes they are required by law to uphold only goes as far as how much of that in group someone is, or how much money someone has to uphold their rights when infringed upon.
In practice the entire system has become political, corrupted or both. As a result, the only rights most people have are those where officers of a court are only limited by where their immunity ends. They can and do violate the law and ignore large parts of it if it suits them.
Assuming someone has the resources to even get any oversight at all, in most cases those involved will investigate each other and decide they have done nothing wrong. Even in the unlikely event that someone proves an illegal act, they will just claim immunity.
To be removed as a judge you have to do shit so egregious, like taking kickbacks from the prison industry to sentence children into their custody and work programs, to the point it is an open secret (where your own Facebook shows you hanging out with the CEOs of such companies, and your conviction rates and sentencing for juveniles is so far on the curve it couldn't possibly be coincidence) and even then it will take YEARS, all the while you go on doing it.
That's the key point here. You won't be able to sue a judge who does that, but he could still be impeached. And probably would be.
You would probably have a really good shot at an appeal, too.
"Probably" would be impeached? The bar for impeachment and recall would appear to be exceptionally high, often rising to the level of "national news coverage and extended outrage" (witness the judge on the Brock case).
This was an interesting and engrossing film with an attractive sci-fi/AI setting, whose moral and theme, of course, had absolutely nothing at all to do with AI.
This is not real life.
Different rules for the rulers and the proles has been a big part of life on Earth for eternity. Why shouldn't we be surprised that this judge thinks it's okay to do things that a grade schooler can't.
The way to challenge a judge's opinion is to appeal it, not personally sue the judge. These responses are histrionic and misinformed.
Appeals are not automatic. Another judge has to decide whether you have standing to appeal - you can't just say "don't like the result, redo!"
Right, there needs to be procedural grounds for appeal, and this case is entirely about the judge violating procedural rules by delegating away their judgement. It's a perfect example of a case for an appeals court.
Doesn't seem that way for people with money though.
This is how you get vigilante justice. It is only held back by people believing that the state will treat them fairly in a court. Once the majority no longer believe that, you get chaos. I am entirely sure we do not want that. The correct action would be to make an EXTREME example of this judge: disbarment, prison, etc...
This is just how the US legal system works. When a judge has made a terrible decision for dumb reasons, you appeal it, you don’t sue the judge. There’d be a similar result if you sued a judge for ruling against you at the instructions of their cult leader or something.
>> When a judge has made a terrible decision for dumb reasons, you appeal it
This is not how the legal system works. You need grounds for the Appeal - such as procedural - AND need to get another court to agree with your grounds AND be willing to have the case heard again. None of these are gimmes, and they all take time and money.
This definitely how the US system works. The core job of the appeal court is correct errors of law.
Your other criticisms are valid, such as time, money and there is definitely deference to lower court judges. But the recourse for a judge misunderstanding the law (for AI or any reason) is the appeal process.
And there are processes for disciplining and even removing judges who fail to uphold their responsibilities. A private lawsuit simply isn't venue for doing so.
But did the judge make the decision? I think there's a real question of whether this is a failure of due process rights. But I also think supreme Court Justices need to be awake for the court to actually hear arguments, so what do I know.
IANAL, but my understanding is that Judicial immunity in the US is absolute; if a Judge orders the police to beat up a defense attorney, they cannot be sued for it[1].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mireles_v._Waco
That is what the article and judgement was about- they can certainly use that argument to appeal the case, but not to hold the judge in the case personally liable.
There would be a real question if the judge in fact used AI. The plaintiff's complaint (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nvd.176...) makes it pretty clear that he's just nuts and had no real reason to think she did.
But of course a court can't dismiss someone's complaint on the grounds that they're nuts; in order to rule on the substance of this case, a court would have to conduct new hearings to gather all the details about the original hearing in which AI was allegedly used. The purpose of judicial immunity is to push all objections to judicial decisions through the appellate courts, which don't have to re-hear everything before issuing a ruling.
Volokh Conspiracy is just culture war ragebait.
The wasn't a single opinion presented in that very short article. It was largely quoting and restating what happened- the judge isn't personally liable via civil suit.
Other articles by volokh might be intentionally incendiary (I haven't read them) but this one is as bland as bland gets.