US Fifth Circuit removes a federal judge from a case after AI-generated errors appeared in his rulings

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on October 22 vacated a preliminary injunction issued by federal district judge Henry Wingate in Mississippi. Wingate had blocked a state law that bars public education funds from being spent on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. The appeals court ordered that the case, Jackson Federation of Teachers v. Fitch, be reassigned to a different judge. Judge Jerry Smith, writing for the panel, said the district court proceedings “were a botch job, to say the least.”

According to the opinion, Wingate’s July 2025 temporary restraining order named eleven plaintiffs who were never part of the case and two officials who were not sued, cited declarations absent from the record and misquoted the law. In a letter to Senator Chuck Grassley, Wingate blamed the errors on a law clerk’s use of AI; Bloomberg Law reports the tool was Perplexity. At oral argument, it emerged that even the corrected order cited a Fourth Circuit case that does not exist.

The court based the reversal on flawed legal analysis as well as the fabricated material. It did not rule on whether the law is constitutional, leaving that to the new judge. Judge Haynes, the third panel member, concurred only in the final paragraph. Wingate was not removed from the bench, only from this case.