Higgins v. State

What the court wrote

Verbatim from the court's document (public domain). Ellipses mark omitted text; nothing is paraphrased.

Outside the jury’s presence, the trial judge referred to a written memorandum defense counsel filed regarding the admissibility of said items. During the ensuing colloquy between the trial judge and defense counsel, the trial judge stated that defense counsel’s memorandum misstated the holdings of several cases, whereupon defense counsel admitted that the memorandum was produced by artificial intelligence and he did not read the cases cited therein. The trial judge overruled defense counsel’s objection and admitted the items into evidence. ... Counsel described the amount of discovery in Appellant’s case as “insurmountable” and stated that he used artificial intelligence (AI) to transcribe long videos into written form to make it easier to review them with Appellant. ... Counsel also testified that he used AI to generate memoranda regarding legal issues. ... Appellant argues that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by ... presenting an inaccurate AI-prepared memorandum to the trial court ... Assuming without deciding that counsel’s performance was deficient, we conclude that Appellant fails to establish that, but for counsel’s alleged errors and omissions, the outcome of his trial would have been different.

Authorities cited in the passage: Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) · Texas Rule of Evidence 403