Danuta Dec v. Homeland Security
7th Cir. CA · Mar 30, 2026
- Jurisdiction
- federal
- Court
- 7th Cir. CA
- Record ID
- danuta-dec-v-homeland-security-2026-03-30
- Observed outcome
- Public admonishment of counsel.
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
Why this matter warrants attention
The Seventh Circuit admonished petitioner's counsel for including non-existent case citations and a false quotation in an opening brief. While the court noted the errors were characteristic of AI-generated content, it accepted counsel's apology and lack of intent to deceive, ultimately declining to impose further sanctions beyond the public admonishment.
The court reasoned that while the errors were consistent with AI-generated hallucinations, counsel's sincere apology, acceptance of responsibility, and lack of intent to deceive warranted only a public admonishment rather than formal disciplinary sanctions.
Counsel who 'cannot explain' a fabricated cite when questioned escalate admonishment into discipline risk.
Failure modes and consequences
- Hallucinated_case_law
- Hallucinated_quotes
- Failure_to_verify_citations
- Fake Citations
- Fabricated Quotes
- Immigration
- AI attribution
- Implied
- Recorded tool
- AI (implied, unspecified)
- Known monetary consequence
- Not recorded
- Procedural posture
- Appellate review of a district court dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction; the court addressed the briefing errors as a collateral matter within the appellate opinion.
Damien Charlotin case archive
Publisher document archive. The recorded document is hosted in the upstream publisher archive.
Open underlying sourceA recorded source link is not a substitute for checking the underlying order, filing, opinion, or disciplinary record.
What this record does—and does not—establish
AI (implied, unspecified) is recorded in the source dataset; confirm the basis in the linked document.
The record summarizes the outcome described in the linked public source. The recorded document is hosted in the upstream publisher archive. This page is not a substitute for the complete docket, subsequent history, or jurisdiction-specific advice.
Latest evidence review: Primary Document Verified (high confidence).
Controls suggested by the public record
- Verify the existence, citation, court, and precedential status of every authority before filing.
- Compare every quoted passage and pincite directly with the underlying opinion or filing.
- Apply the same source-checking controls to AI (implied, unspecified) output as to any other research input.
- Read the linked source and subsequent docket history before relying on this record for legal work.