it would have been about as respectful to use the corpse as a puppet and put up a show for the court with it.
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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I found this interesting. The AI said it believes in forgiveness.
"To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances," the AI Pelkey says. "In another life we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness, in God who forgives, I always have. And I still do."
But the victim's sister, who created the AI did it to try to get the maximum sentence for the defendant.
The prosecution against Horcasitas was only seeking nine years for the killing. The maximum was 10 and a half years. Stacey had asked the judge for the full sentence during her own impact statement. The judge granted her request, something Stacey credits—in part—to the AI video.
To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” the AI avatar of Christopher Pelkey said. “In another life we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and a God who forgives. I still do.”
I find this nauseatingly disgusting and a disgrace that this was shown in a court of all places.
No, this man does not believe in forgiveness or a God because he's dead. He never said this, somebody wrote this script and a computer just made a video off it with his likeness.
Fuck everything about this, this should be prohibited
Time to update my will.
This judge needs to be disbarred and have a forced mental evaluation.
The fuckin’ dude’s wife wrote the speech the AI read… I don’t care how much you know someone, putting words in their mouths like that feels wrong. And the fucking judge added a year to the sentence citing the power of the video.
Fucking absurd.
Yeah, this is super fucked up. I think that it would be powerful and completely reasonable to have the AI read actual words he wrote, like from old text messages, emails, or whatever. That is a legitimate way to bring someone to life—completely ethical if they wrote the material. This is a disgrace to justice and ridiculous.
This is some perverse shit
This is basically "Weekend at Bernie's", using the likeness of a dead man as a puppet.
This isn't a message from the victim. This is a message from his sister using his image as a way to increase the impact of her statement in court.
This is a bad thing, this is manipulating the court with a false and confusing message.
There were videos shown during the trial that Stacey said were deeply difficult to sit through. “Videos of Chris literally being blown away with a bullet through his chest, going in the street, falling backward. We saw these items over and over and over,” she said. “And we were instructed: don’t you gasp and don’t you cry and do not make a scene, because that can cause a mistrial.”
“Our goal was to make the judge cry. Our goal was to bring Chris to life and to humanize him,” she said.
If gasping at video of real events is grounds for a mistrial, then so is fabricated statements intended to emotionally manipulate the court. It's ludicrous that this was allowed and honestly is grounds to disbar the judge. If he allows AI nonsense like this, then his courtroom can not be relied upon for fair trials.
The victim impact statement isn’t evidence in the trial. The trial has already wrapped up. The impact statement is part of sentencing, when the court is deciding what an acceptable punishment would be. The guilty verdict has already been made, so the rules surrounding things like acceptable evidence are much more lenient.
The reason she wasn’t allowed to make a scene during the trial is because the defense can argue that her outburst is tainting the jury. It’s something the jury is being forced to witness, which hasn’t gone through the proper evidence admission process. So if she makes a scene, the defense can say that the defendant isn’t being given a fair trial because inadmissible evidence was shown to the jury, and move for a mistrial.
It sounds harsh, but the prosecutor told her to be stoic because they wanted the best chance of nailing the guy. If she threw their case out the window by loudly crying in the back of the courtroom, that wouldn’t be justice.
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The worse is everybody knows, including the judge, but they still chose to accept it.
Reading a bit more, during the sentencing phase in that state people making victim impact statements can choose their format for expression, and it's entirely allowed to make statements about what other people would say. So the judge didn't actually have grounds to deny it.
No jury during that phase, so it's just the judge listening to free form requests in both directions.
It's gross, but the rules very much allow the sister to make a statement about what she believes her brother would have wanted to say, in whatever format she wanted.
Hot take: victim impact statements shouldn't be allowed. They are appeals to emotion.
I'd argue that emotions are a legitimate factor to consider in sentencing.
It's a bit more obvious with living victims of non-homicide crimes, but the emotional impact of crime is itself a cost borne by society. A victim of a romance scam having trouble trusting again, a victim of a shooting having PTSD with episodes triggered by loud noises, a victim of sexual assault dealing with anxiety or depression after, etc.
It's a legitimate position to say that punishment shouldn't be a goal of criminal sentencing (focusing instead of deterrence and rehabilitation), or that punishment should be some sort of goal based entirely on the criminal's state of mind and not the factors out of their own control, but I'd disagree. The emotional aftermath of a crime is part of the crime, and although there's some unpredictable variance involved, we already tolerate that in other contexts, like punishing a successful murder more than an attempted murder.
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I feel like I could be persuaded either way, but I lean towards allowing them during sentencing.
I don't think "it's an appeal to emotion" is a compelling argument in that context because it's no longer about establishing truth like the trial is, but about determining punishment and restitution.
Justice isn't just about the offender or society, it's also indelibly tied to the victim. Giving them a voice for how they, as the wronged party, would see justice served seems important for it's role in providing justice, not just the rote application of law.
Obviously you can't just have the victim decide, but the judges entire job is to ensure fairness, often in the face of strong feelings and contentious circumstances.
Legitimately interested to hear why your opinion is what it is in more detail.
In terms of restitution, sure, the victim should have input. But in cases like imprisonment, I don't see why the victim should have input into the length of a sentence, for example. If the offender is a danger to the public, they should remain in prison until such time that they are not. Emotional appeals should not factor into that determination.
Thanks for the additional context.
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Seems like a great way to provide the defendant with a great reason to appeal
I’d really like to hope that this is a one off boomer brained judge and the precedent set is this was as stupid an idea as it gets, but every time I think shot can’t get dumber…
boomer brained judge
Boomer here. Don't assume we all think the same. Determining behavior from age brackets is about as effective as doing it based on Chinese astrology (but I'm a Monkey so I would say that, wouldn't I?)
The judge's problem is being a nitwit, not what year they were born in.
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Yeah a fiction has no place in a courtroom. If we can upload maybe we can revisit but this is just stupid.
Just to be clear, they were fully transparent about it:
“Hello, just to be clear for everyone seeing this, I am a version of Chris Pelkey recreated through AI that uses my picture and my voice profile,” the stilted avatar says. “I was able to be digitally regenerated to share with you today. Here is insight into who I actually was in real life.”
However, I think the following is somewhat misleading:
The video goes back to the AI avatar. “I would like to make my own impact statement,” the avatar says.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. It seems that the motivation was genuine compassion from the victim's family, and a desire to honestly represent victim to the best of their ability. But ultimately, it's still the victim's sister's impact statement, not his.
Here's what the judge had to say:
“I loved that AI, and thank you for that. As angry as you are, and as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness, and I know Mr. Horcasitas could appreciate it, but so did I,” Lang said immediately before sentencing Horcasitas. “I love the beauty in what Christopher, and I call him Christopher—I always call people by their last names, it’s a formality of the court—but I feel like calling him Christopher as we’ve gotten to know him today. I feel that that was genuine, because obviously the forgiveness of Mr. Horcasitas reflects the character I heard about today. But it also says something about the family, because you told me how angry you were, and you demanded the maximum sentence. And even though that’s what you wanted, you allowed Chris to speak from his heart as you saw it. I didn’t hear him asking for the maximum sentence.”
I am concerned that it could set a precedent for misuse, though. The whole thing seems like very grey to me. I'd suggest everyone read the whole article before passing judgement.
I was able to be digitally regenerated
I would like to make my own impact statement
you allowed Chris to speak from his heart as you saw it. I didn’t hear him asking for the maximum sentence.
These, especially the second, cross the line imo. The judge acknowledges it's AI but is acting like it isn't, and same for the sister especially.
Your emotions don't always line up with "what you know" this is why evidence rules exist in court. Humans don't work that way. This is why there can be mistrials if specific kinds of evidence is revealed to the jury that shouldn't have been shown.
Digital reenactments shouldn't be allowed, even with disclaimers to the court. It is fiction and has no place here.
why evidence rules exist in court.
Sure, but not for victim impact statements. Hearsay, speculation, etc. have always been fair game for victim impact statements, and victim statements aren't even under oath. Plus the other side isn't allowed to cross examine them. It's not evidence, and it's not "testimony" in a formal sense (because it's not under oath or under penalty of perjury).
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nope. nope nope nope! Fuck this. I wanna go back to 2002 with Cortana whispering in my ear about fleet chatter and being optimistic.
That's not the world that unfurled though, and LLM's are not AI.
This marketing hype regurgitation machine "learning" can all go eat shit. All of it. Soooo done with the simps saying "oh but this application of the tech totally justifies burning down forests and guzzling water and power and totally wasnt trained on stolen, socially prejudice datasets"
Fuck that noise and while we're at it I'm entirely turned off by AAA media trends and current gen hardware too. Don't @ me, fuck a smartphone I've got a DS.
"gampa, did it hurt when you died?"
Hey there, buddy. That’s a big question! When people get very old or very sick, their bodies sometimes get tired, like a toy that slowly stops working. Normal people might go and buy a new toy from Amazon with all their great prices and exceptional customer service but your old gramps couldn't do that. When it’s time to go, it’s usually peaceful—like falling asleep after a long, fun day on a nice comfortable Saatva bed. I don’t think it hurts, because our bodies know how to let go gently. What’s important is all the love and happy memories we share. You can even go back and look at all our wonderful memories from the good people at Instagram. And even when I’m not here anymore, that love stays with you forever. Would you like to send some of those memories to your local Walgreen's to print?
Ha, genius. So true as well, this is the inevitable result of personalised ads. A video of your dead Grandmother popping up saying: "I sure did love big brand hazelnut chocolate. Celebrate my birthday tomorrow and buy a bar for you and the whole family."
Omg I hate this so much fuck you
So you prefer CVS?
Please stop talking, please
I like AI, sort of. But this is ghoulish.
Wtaf... regardless of how well he was known by his family, this is the glorified version of a video resumé created by someone else, not the actual person – so it should be accepted as that: someone else's testimony.
It's not even a Reynolds' beta-level simulation.
Why the judge accepted is beyond me.
Preface: This does not belong in a courtroom. These were not his words. These were words that someone else wrote, and then put into the mouth of a very realistic puppet of him.
This was a victim impact statement, which I think comes after sentencing. In that case, it wouldn't have had an impact on sentencing, but I still feel quite strongly that this kind of misrepresentation has no place in a court.
This was shown before the sentencing. The judge referenced it explicitly in their sentencing as a reason to apply leniency.
From a comment above:
Here's what the judge had to say:
“I loved that AI, and thank you for that. As angry as you are, and as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness, and I know Mr. Horcasitas could appreciate it, but so did I,” Lang said immediately before sentencing Horcasitas. “I love the beauty in what Christopher, and I call him Christopher—I always call people by their last names, it’s a formality of the court—but I feel like calling him Christopher as we’ve gotten to know him today. I feel that that was genuine, because obviously the forgiveness of Mr. Horcasitas reflects the character I heard about today. But it also says something about the family, because you told me how angry you were, and you demanded the maximum sentence. And even though that’s what you wanted, you allowed Chris to speak from his heart as you saw it. I didn’t hear him asking for the maximum sentence.”
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Apparently the video was presented after the verdict was already issued. This video had no impact on the actual outcome of the trial, and was more of just a closing statement.
So the judge didn't approve this a testimony, but just found it emotionally touching.
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AI should absolutely never be allowed in court. Defense is probably stoked about this because it's obviously a mistrial. Judge should be reprimanded for allowing that shit
It was after the verdict of the trial. This was displayed during the sentencing hearing where family members get to state how the death affected them. It's still fucked up, but to be clear it wasn't used during the trial.
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If anyone ever did this with my likeness after death, even with good intentions, i would haunt the fuck out of them.
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“Stacey was up front and the video itself…said it was AI generated. We were very careful to make sure it was clear that these were the words that the family believed Christopher would have to say,”
"I love the beauty in what Christopher, and I call him Christopher—I always call people by their last names, it’s a formality of the court—but I feel like calling him Christopher as we’ve gotten to know him today."
Can't have it both ways. If you understand this was fabricated AI then you did not "get to know him today". The facts of the case were already self evident for guilt, but this needs to be a mistrial. We can not have a standard of fair justice when generated AI is treated like living breathing people.
The judge should have had the sense to keep this shitty craft project out of the courtroom. Victim statements should also be banned as manipulative glurge.
“I loved that AI, and thank you for that...” Lang said immediately before sentencing Horcasitas.
I hope they win that appeal an get a new sentencing or a new trial even. That sounds like a horrible misuse of someone's likeness. Even if my family used a direct quote from me I'd be PISSED if they recreated my face and voice without my permission.
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