Benjamin v. State

What happened, and when

• 15 Jul 2025Appellant’s brief is filed. It contains multiple inaccurate case citations.
• 3 Sep 2025A notice of errata is filed.
• 9 Sep 2025Treated as a motion to correct, and denied.
• 17 Sep 2025A motion to strike and refile is denied, having been filed three days before the State’s brief was due.
• 29 Oct 2025Mezu v. Mezu, 267 Md. App. 354 (2025), is decided.
• 25 Aug 2026Opinion. Judgment affirmed. No referral.

The court on what it could not establish

“counsel for appellant has not admitted that the mistakes in the brief were due to the use of AI, but that seems likely.”

No disclosure was made, and the court records the gap rather than filling it. This is the same gap a court in Illinois filled a day later by reading its own docket clock in Shelbert v. Baxter.

Why no referral

The court set out the reasons it declined to refer counsel to the Attorney Grievance Commission.

• TimingThe brief was filed before Mezu v. Mezu was decided on 29 October 2025.
• DegreeThe inaccuracies “were not excessive and did not include totally made up cases”.
• CorrectionCounsel attempted to correct them before the State filed its brief.
• HarmThe State does not contend that it was harmed.

Taken together those are the factors that kept a matter below the referral line in this jurisdiction on this record. They are unusual to see stated.

The standard the court reaffirms

Quoting Mezu:

“The failure to use AI responsibly in legal research raises ethical issues and can result in sanctions when used improperly. It is unquestionably improper for an attorney to submit a brief with fake cases generated by AI.”

In Mezu itself the attorney was referred to the Attorney Grievance Commission. The court distinguishes it on severity as well as timing: there the brief cited multiple cases that did not exist alongside others that did not support the proposition cited, and counsel stated at argument that he did not typically read the cases he cited to the court. Here, conduct that predated Mezu was treated more leniently than conduct after it would be.

What this case contributes

• The dateA jurisdiction fixing a point after which novelty stops being an answer. Before 29 October 2025 on this record, and differently after.
• The factorsTiming, severity, attempted correction and absence of asserted harm, stated openly as what kept a referral off the table.
• The gapCounsel did not admit it. The court recorded that, said AI use seemed likely, and went no further.
• WhereThe discussion sits in a preliminary statement, before merits that have nothing to do with AI. The court chose to address it anyway.

Sources

• Opinion, No. 2189, September Term 2024 (App. Ct. Md. 25 August 2026), six pages, read in full. The copy read is a commercial reprint of the opinion, not the Maryland Judiciary’s own slip opinion, and the opinion is unreported. Reported at 2026 WL 2491126.
• Located through Damien Charlotin’s AI Hallucination Cases database, which is a compilation and not a primary source.
• Counsel is not named. The court did not name counsel in this discussion, and declined to refer them.

Related

• The full sanctions record
• Ruiz v. Magellan Financial, the day before, where a public reprimand was imposed
• Shelbert v. Baxter, the day after, where the court filled the disclosure gap by inference
• Every verified AI standing order

Checked 30 August 2026 against the opinion text, read in full in a commercial reprint. The opinion is unreported. Information, not legal advice.