Will AI Eliminate the Need for Lawyers? Not so fast ...
I tested the latest version of ChatGPT-4 with a straightforward legal question and it got it wrong.
Yesterday, ChatGBT announced the release of its upgraded to version 4.0. Within hours of the launch, my crypto twitter feed was full of posts praising this latest upgrade and showing examples of what the API is now capable of doing. The results were truly stunning. One post mentioned that ChatGBT-4 has already registered nearly perfect passing scores on the multi state bar exam, the LSAT, the GRE and the SAT—to name a few! Twitter Post
So as a tech-centric lawyer, I immediately upgraded my account to ChatGBT-4 and began testing its potential use-cases. ChatGBT-4 Upgrade. The first test I ran was to ask a very simple and straight forward query: “Write a legal blog post explaining whether an officer can search a motor vehicle based on the oder of marijuana in Texas.”
I sat in amazement as the AI instantly generated an entire blog post discussing the subject matter. ChatGBT-4 generated a blog posted titled “The Impact of Marijuana Odor on Vehicle Searches in Texas.” The blog posted noted that:
The AI blog post further noted that:
The blog post was correct in observing that the passage of the 2018 Federal Farm Bill did open the door to Texas legalizing hemp derived products like CBD. But, did the “legalization of hemp and the medical marijuana program” impact whether police officers still have automatic probable cause to search a vehicle based solely on the odor of marijuana?? My answer is no, but the AI came a to a different conclusion.
Under the AI blog section titled “Recent Case Law and Developments” it noted that:
I paused when I read this and immediately did some legal research. As a practicing criminal defense lawyer in Texas, I was initially very surprised to read that a Texas court had “emphasized that the odor of marijuana alone may not be sufficient to establish probable cause in light of the legalization of hemp.” So I went to CaseText.com and searched for the the 2021 Delafuente Texas Court of Criminal Appeals court decision. My search came up with no such case ever being published in 2021.
In the 2013 case of State v.. Delafuente, the defendant was convicted of possession of marijuana. The marijuana was found in the vehicle after the officer conducted a traffic stop, smelled the odor or marijuana in the vehicle and defendant admitted he in fact had marijuana in the trunk. The defendant in that case filed a motion to suppress challenging whether the officer had a reasonable suspicion to conduct the traffic stop. The Texas Court of Appeals in the 2013 Delafuenta case made no finding as to whether an officer has automatic probable cause to search the vehicle based solely on the odor of marijuana and whether that odor could instead be “legal” hemp .State v. Delafuente. Hemp was not even legal in Texas in 2013, so this issue was not at all relevant to the search of Delafuente’s vehicle.
I then prompted ChatGBT-4 with another search query: “In 2021, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals addressed this issue in the case of State v. Delafuente.”
The response again incorrectly cited to a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals case addressing the issue of an illegal search of a vehicle based on the odor of marijuana. I doubled checked both the CaseText.com and on Google and could find no such holding by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Here’s the ChatGBT-4 query result:
To be clear, courts in Texas have universally held that because marijuana is illegal in Texas, an officer has automatic probable cause to search a vehicle based solely upon the odor of marijuana
Contrary to the AI’s finding, at least one court addressed the very issue of whether an officer could have been mistaken about whether the odor coming from inside a vehicle was “legal” hemp as opposed to “illegal” marijuana. In Cortez v. State, the defendant appealed the denial of a motion to suppress on the basis that “there was probable cause to support the officer's warrantless search of his vehicle because it was based the officer's belief that he smelled "illegal marijuana," which has the same odor as "legal hemp." Cortez v. State. The Texas court in that appeal rejected the argument and held that the judge did not err in denying the motion suppress.
“In this case, the officer was not mistaken in his belief that Cortez was in possession of marijuana. Rather, Cortez argues that because marijuana and hemp come from the same plant, Cannabis sativa L., the difference between the two are impossible to distinguish by smell and therefore, the possibility of error was invariably present and, thus, the odorof Cannabis sativa L. is insufficient by itself to establish probable cause to search. But the possession of marijuana is still a criminal offense under Texas law and a reasonable, even if ultimately erroneous conclusion by an officer on the scene as to the identity of the substance, would be permitted under the Fourth Amendment. See HEALTH &SAFETY § 481.121(A). Therefore, we conclude the odor of Cannabis sativa L. emanating from Cortez's vehicle gave the officer probable cause to search the vehicle as well as its occupants.”
Although this is now a hotly debated issue, Texas Courts are still unwilling to make a finding to-date that legal hemp changes or impacts whether mere odor of suspect marijuana coming from a vehicle is probable cause for an officer to automatically search. TCDLA Voice for the Defense What’s in a name? That which we call weed/by any other name would smell as sweet (June 2022).
AI innovation is happening at lightening speed. Many speculate that as AI continues to improve, it will automate and perhaps even eliminate the need for lawyers. Yes, I do agree that AI is a tool that will most certainly automate many aspects of the legal field, including document review and creation. But for now, it is my belief that we still need lawyers to closely monitor the work-product that AI generates—especially when comes to legal research.
If a lawyer, or even worse, a lay person would have relied upon this AI generated blog response without doing any additional legal research, there could well have been severe consequences. The lesson learned, proceed with extreme caution when relying upon AI generated legal analysis.