Judge relying wholly on AI in order is covered by judicial immunity, court rules
reason.com15 points by delichon 2 hours ago
15 points by delichon 2 hours ago
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...
This is a film, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_(2026_film)
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.
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.
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.
Volokh Conspiracy is just culture war ragebait.
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.
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.