CourtsArizona appeals court vacates a sentence after an AI video of the victim was shown

The Arizona Court of Appeals on September 30 vacated the sentence in a 2021 Chandler road rage killing. Gabriel Horcasitas had received 10½ years for shooting Christopher Pelkey. At sentencing, the victim's family played an AI video built from earlier footage, photos and a script written by Pelkey's sister, in which Pelkey says he forgives his killer.

The court said the video did not record an event or a moment but presented the sister's imagining of the victim and his thoughts, and that the sentencing judge was prejudiced by it, making the proceeding fundamentally unfair. The judge had said at sentencing that he "loved that AI." The conviction stands and Horcasitas will be resentenced.