He was killed in a road rage shooting. AI allowed him to deliver his own victim impact statement

CHANDLER Ariz AP There were dozens of statements submitted to the court by family and friends of Christopher Pelkey when it came time to sentence the man convicted of shooting him during a road rage affair They provided glimpses of Pelkey s humor his character and his military function But there was nothing quite like hearing from the victim himself in this situation an AI-generated version In what s considered to be a first in U S courts Pelkey s family used artificial intelligence to create a video using his likeness to give him a voice The AI rendering of Pelkey stated the shooter during the sentencing hearing last week that it was a shame they had to meet that day in under those circumstances and that the two of them seemingly could have been friends in another life I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives I invariably have and I still do Pelkey s avatar informed Gabriel Paul Horcasitas The AI version of Pelkey went on to share advice for people to make the the majority of each day and to love each other not knowing how much time one might have left While use of artificial intelligence within the court system is expanding it s typically been reserved for administrative tasks legal research incident preparation In Arizona it s helped inform the population of rulings in important cases Using AI to generate victim impact statements marks a new and legal at least in Arizona tool for sharing information with the court outside the evidentiary phases Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Todd Lang who presided over the road rage scenario mentioned after watching the video that he imagined Pelkey who was at the time of his killing would have felt that way after learning about him Lang also noted the video explained something about Pelkey s family who had expressed their anger over his death and had petitioned for Horcasitas to receive the maximum sentence Horcasitas was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to imprisonment Even though that s what you craved you allowed Chris to speak from his heart as you saw it Lang commented The Associated Press left phone and emailed messages Wednesday seeking comment from Horcasitas lawyer Pelkey s sister Stacey Wales raised the idea of her brother speaking for himself For years while the incident worked its way through the legal system Wales reported she thought about what she would say at the sentencing hearing She struggled to get words down on paper But when she thought about what her brother would say to the shooter knowing he would have forgiven him the words poured out of her In Arizona casualties can give their impact statements in any digital format announced casualties rights attorney Jessica Gattuso who represented the family Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ann Timmer didn t address the road rage occurrence specifically in an interview Wednesday But she disclosed the rise in popularity and accessibility to AI in modern years led to the formation of a committee to research best practices in the courts Gary Marchant a member of the committee and a law professor at Arizona State University commented he understands why Pelkey s family did it But he warned the use of this system could open the door to more people trying to introduce AI-generated evidence into courtrooms There s a real concern among the judiciary and among lawyers that deepfake evidence will be increasingly used he disclosed It s easy to create it and anyone can do it on a phone and it could be incredibly influential because judges and juries just like all of us are used to believing what you see Marchant pointed to a modern situation in New York where a man without a lawyer used an AI-generated avatar to argue his development in a lawsuit via video It took only seconds for the judges on the appeals court to realize that the man addressing them from the video screen didn t exist at all In the Arizona incident Wales stated the AI-generated video worked because the judge had nearly letters from family and friends that echoed the video s message There was a solid gold thread through all of those stories that was the heart of Chris Wales mentioned This works because it talks about the kind of person Chris was Yamat stated from Las Vegas Associated Press reporter Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque New Mexico contributed to this overview Source