A man sentenced to a decade in prison for manslaughter must be resentenced after an Arizona appeals court ruled that a video statement delivered by an AI-generated version of the dead victim can’t be considered reliable. The decision reflects the growing debate over when, and how, it’s appropriate to use artificial intelligence in court cases.

Gabriel Paul Horcasitas, 55, was convicted in the 2021 shooting death of Christopher Pelkey during a road rage altercation in Phoenix. In May 2025, the judge sentenced Horcasitas to 10.5 years behind bars after considering dozens of impact statements submitted to the court by Pelkey’s family and friends. One statement, believed to be the first of its kind in a U.S. courtroom, came in the form of an AI-generated video of the victim himself, featuring his likeness and digitally recreated voice.

The video, presented during sentencing, shows real footage of Pelkey, a U.S. Army veteran who was 37 at the time of the shooting, talking about his military service in Iraq and Afghanistan and his faith in God. In the AI-generated segment that appears before and after the recorded snippet, he speaks directly to the man who killed him.

“It is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” he says. “In another life, we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives. I always have and I still do.”

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Todd Lang, the judge presiding over last year’s sentencing, didn’t say whether the AI-generated statement impacted his decision. He did thank the family for it and said he believed the comments in the video were spoken “from the heart” and aligned with the victim’s character as he understood it after hearing about Pelkey from his family and friends.

But after considering an appeal filed by Horcasitas’ lawyer, the Arizona Appeals Court said on Wednesday that the AI-generated video didn’t represent statements made directly by the victim. According to legal documents, Horcasitas argued that he was denied due process because the sentencing judge “heard and expressly relied on an AI-generated video that recreated the victim’s appearance and voice.”

“Indeed, rather than document an event or recording a particular moment, the AI video presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim’s sister,” the three-judge panel wrote in its decision, which upheld the conviction while tossing the sentence. “It erases the interpretive distance between the family’s belief about what the victim would have said and the victim’s own voice and opinions.”

Giving The Dead A Voice In Court

The sister mentioned in the decision, Stacey Wales, said the family chose AI as the most effective, impactful way to humanize Pelkey and give him a voice, and that they carefully selected words they believe would have come out of his mouth.

“When judged by what it purported to be — an artistic compilation expressing our family’s genuine understanding of Chris’ spirit — it was authentic and reliable,” Wales said in an interview. Those who knew her brother and watched the video “emphatically agreed and affirmed the message in the AI video is what Chris believed and could hear him saying in real life.”

Pelkey “was a very opinionated, black and white person,” she added. “You knew where he stood on every issue. It was clear to envision what he would have thought about this.”

‘Arbitrary Line Between Media Formats’

Wales believes the appellate court got last week’s decision wrong. The Arizona Victims’ Bill of Rights affords her the ability to say what she wanted, how she wanted, she stressed.

“The appellate court drew an arbitrary line between media formats,” she said. “Families routinely play slideshows, display collages, recite hypothetical conversations or read poetry to convey their grief. Ruling that using modern digital tools to deliver that same message violates due process unduly restricts how victims choose to exercise their constitutional right to be heard.”

According to court documents, the crime happened when Horcasitas pulled up behind Pelkey at a busy intersection and honked at him. When Pelkey got out of his truck and walked toward Horcasitas’ car waving his arms and yelling, the latter fatally shot the former within seconds. The jury rejected the defendant’s claim of self-defense.

The justice system, like virtually every other field these days, is grappling with how and when rapidly evolving artificial intelligence should be used. The presentation of the AI-generated Pelkey video at last year’s sentencing, and the appeals court’s rejection of it as unreliable, highlight some of the questions surrounding the use of AI beyond a tool for legal research, particularly when technology is used to recreate people or events.

Critics of AI-based evidence say it can be biased, deceptive and inaccurate, among other concerns. Last year, a judge in Ohio threw out evidence derived from AI-driven facial recognition software.

Gary Marchant, a law professor at Arizona State University who serves on a committee investigating best practices for AI use in the courts, called the state appellate court’s decision “prudent.”

“I think courts need to adopt an ironclad rule that no fake AI-generated evidence be introduced in court. It will open the doors to all kinds of manipulation,” he said in an interview.

But Wales emphasized that the AI-generated video of her brother doesn’t count as evidence.

“Sentencing statements are subjective expressions, not objective proof. No jury saw this, it was not evidence in the trial,” she said. Marchant, however, believes that even an AI-generated statement like the one presented at Horcasitas’ sentencing can be “borderline prejudicial because it is guessing what the victim would say.”

As AI becomes increasingly woven into everyday life, few technologies have generated as much controversy about their use — and where their boundaries should reside.

The debate will continue, and for the Christopher Pelkey’s family, so will the pain.

“Having to return to court to relive the worst trauma of your lives because of process feels like an insult layered on top of tragedy,” Wales said. “But if that’s what it takes, we will show up every time for our brother because he can’t.”