Pop Culture and Law

Kim Kardashian recently suggested that using ChatGPT may have contributed to her failing a law school exam. Whether or not that’s exactly what happened, it highlights a real issue in the legal profession: AI can be helpful, but it isn’t a substitute for actual legal research.

One major risk is something known as AI hallucinations. Tools like ChatGPT sometimes generate cases or legal citations that sound convincing but don’t actually exist. Lawyers who rely on those without verifying them have even faced court sanctions. That’s why legal training emphasizes going directly to the source—pulling the case and confirming that the law actually says what you think it says.

AI can still be useful as a starting point for brainstorming or organizing ideas. But when it comes to legal work, attorneys still have to do the hard part themselves: checking the sources and making sure the law is accurate.

A key issue in the murder case involving Luigi Mangione centers on whether his Miranda rights were violated during police questioning. According to the defense, Mangione was interrogated for roughly twenty minutes before being advised of his rights. If that’s true, the court may suppress statements made during that time and potentially any evidence that flowed from them.

That doesn’t mean the case automatically gets dismissed. Instead, the prosecution may lose what’s known as the “fruit of the poisonous tree.” In practical terms, that could mean items like a backpack, a notebook, or certain statements made during the questioning may not be allowed as evidence at trial. Losing that kind of evidence can be a significant setback for the prosecution, but it doesn’t necessarily end the case.

The central legal question is whether Mangione was actually “in custody” during those first twenty minutes. Miranda warnings are required only when someone is both in custody and being interrogated. The defense argues that the police effectively created a situation where Mangione was not free to leave, while prosecutors claim officers were simply asking general questions. Ultimately, the court will have to decide whether the interaction crossed the line into custodial interrogation.

In the lawsuit involving Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, there’s been a lot of attention on private text messages between Lively and Taylor Swift. But legally speaking, the key question is whether those texts are actually relevant to the claims in the case. Courts generally exclude evidence that doesn’t help prove or disprove an issue being litigated, especially if it’s likely to create unfair prejudice. From what’s been reported, the messages appear to be little more than private conversations between friends—including compliments about Lively’s work—which makes it a stretch to argue they prove some kind of conspiracy.

There’s also a significant privacy issue. Lively and Baldoni chose to file lawsuits, which means accepting that some personal communications may become part of the public record. Swift didn’t make that choice. Pulling a non-party’s private messages into a lawsuit raises serious concerns about fairness and privacy, particularly when the messages may have little legal value in the first place.