The leader of the Senate committee that oversees U.S. courts is asking a federal judge in Mississippi to explain whether his office used artificial intelligence to write a flawed order in a recent case.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate on Monday that questioned whether the judge or his clerks used AI to write an order. He also asked why the order in question had been removed from the public docket and whether the judge planned to restore the original order to the docket.

The letter stems from an error-laden temporary restraining order Wingate issued July 20, which paused the enforcement of a state law that bans diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools.

After the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office raised concerns about mistakes in the order — which included naming defendants and plaintiffs that weren’t parties to the case, misquoting state law and referencing a case that doesn’t exist — the judge replaced the order with a corrected version, wiping the original from the public docket. 

Wingate denied the state’s request to restore the original order with errors to the public docket and refused to explain the errors, chalking them up to “clerical” mistakes. But attorneys have questioned whether artificial intelligence was used to prepare it. It’s hard to know for certain, experts say, but the original order did contain errors that are “hallmarks” of AI usage.

“These do not appear to be simple slips of the pen or mechanical oversights, but substantive errors that undermine confidence in the Court’s deliberative process,” Grassley wrote. 

The state attorney general’s office has since appealed Wingate’s orders prohibiting the state from enforcing the DEI laws to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges from the appellate court could also ask Wingate to explain the errors in the order. 

Wingate did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Grassley’s letter. 

Grassley’s letter, which cited reporting from Mississippi Today, is a general oversight inquiry and not a subpoena. He has given Wingate until Oct. 13 to respond to his questions.

With a U.S. senator weighing in on Wingate’s recent case, the Mississippi judge may now be at the center of how the federal judiciary polices itself over AI usage. 

The legal profession has seen a rise in AI use in recent years, with people relying on software or processes that attempt to replicate aspects of human work. These are trained on vast amounts of data to accomplish tasks such as researching court cases and citing them in legal briefs.  

But these systems are not perfect and can “hallucinate,” or provide false information. 

It’s increasingly common for judges to sanction lawyers for suspected artificial intelligence usage. Attorneys have a professional and ethical responsibility to make truthful statements in court and in legal filings, but there’s little accountability when the roles are reversed. 

Grassley, though, wrote that federal judges should also be held to the “highest standards of integrity, candor, and factual accuracy.”

He sent a similar letter to a federal district judge in New Jersey.