An appeals court in Arizona on Wednesday threw out the prison sentence of a man convicted of manslaughter after a video created by artificial intelligence depicting the victim forgiving his killer was played in court.
The three-judge panel reaffirmed the conviction of Gabriel Horcasitas, 55, who had been sentenced to 10.5 years in prison, but said that he must be resentenced in the 2021 road-rage shooting death of Christopher Pelkey, 37.
The judges concluded that the sentencing judge committed a “fundamental error” by allowing and relying on an A.I. video that generated a likeness of Mr. Pelkey’s voice and appearance.
The appeals court found the video did not “reflect actual events” while presenting statements in the footage as if they were coming directly from the victim.
The appeals court noted the use of the A.I.-generated video posed a novel legal issue and that no prior Arizona case had addressed the admissibility of such a depiction of a victim during sentencing.
The video was used with victim-impact statements made by members of Mr. Pelkey’s family and friends in the courtroom during the sentencing of Mr. Horcasitas last year.
At the sentencing, Mr. Pelkey’s older sister, Stacey Wales, presented the A.I. video depicting Mr. Pelkey addressing Mr. Horcasitas.
“I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives,” the video said.
The video also portrayed Mr. Pelkey as addressing the court, saying, “This here is a true representation of who I was.”
The sentencing judge, Todd F. Lang of Maricopa County Superior Court, praised the video, saying, “I loved that A.I.” He called it “genuine” and noted that the victim was allowed to “speak from his heart.”
He then imposed the maximum sentence, which was more than the nine years that prosecutors had sought.
Critics have argued that the introduction of A.I. in legal proceedings can open the door to manipulation and deception, compounding the already emotional process of giving victim-impact statements.
The appeals court held that a victim’s right to speak cannot trample a defendant’s right to be sentenced based on accurate and reliable information.
The video “erases the interpretive distance between the family’s belief about what the victim would have said and the victim’s own voice and opinions,” the judges wrote.
They decided that the reliance on the video made the sentencing procedure fundamentally unfair.
Lawyers for Mr. Pelkey and Mr. Horcasitas did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
Ms. Wales was preparing her own victim-impact statement for two years, she told The New York Times last year, but believed that it was missing a critical element.
“I kept hearing what Chris would say,” she told The Times.
Ms. Wales said that her husband and the couple’s longtime business partner had used A.I. to help corporate clients with presentations, including one featuring the likeness of a company’s chief executive who had died years ago.
With the help of her husband and business partner, she took Mr. Pelkey’s voice from a YouTube video of him speaking after completing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at a facility for veterans, she said.
For his face and torso, they used a poster of Mr. Pelkey from a funeral service, digitally trimming his thick beard, removing his glasses and editing out a logo from his cap, she said.
Ms. Wales said that she had written the script that was read by her brother’s A.I. likeness.
“I know that A.I. can be used nefariously, and it’s uncomfortable for some,” Ms. Wales said last year. “But this was just another tool to use to tell Chris’s story.”
Ms. Wales was not immediately available for comment on Sunday.
On Nov. 13, 2021, Mr. Pelkey was stopped at a red light in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb, when Mr. Horcasitas pulled up behind him and honked.
That caused Mr. Pelkey to leave his vehicle and approach Mr. Horcasitas’s car and gesture with his arms as if to say, “What the heck?” according to a probable cause statement.
Mr. Horcasitas then fatally shot Mr. Pelkey in the chest.
The case will be returned to Maricopa County Superior Court for a new sentencing hearing, without the A.I.-generated video of Mr. Pelkey giving his statement.
Neil Vigdor contributed reporting, and Georgia Gee contributed research.
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