Sharion Aycock
How Judge Aycock decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
When an attorney claims ignorance that AI tools can fabricate citations, the judge treats that claim skeptically and looks for corroborating conduct (e.g. continued unverified AI use in other cases after being caught) before crediting an apology as sincere.
“For these reasons, the Court disbelieves Wilson's claim of ignorance of the risks associated with using AI in the legal context.”
Procedural preferences
She distinguishes sharply between the attorney who drafted a tainted filing (treated as bearing the highest responsibility, especially if using AI without a firm policy permitting it) and local counsel who merely signed without independently checking citations (treated as negligent but not necessarily in bad faith, and given more credit for self-reporting to the bar).
“the Court finds that he too violated his duties as a sponsoring resident attorney pursuant to this Court's Local Rules... the Court has no reason to believe that he acted in bad faith.”
Cautions
The judge does not require proof that AI was actually used to sanction fabricated citations -- an attorney's denial of AI use is not a defense if the citations do not exist or misstate the case's holding.
“the Court need not make any finding as to whether Martin actually used AI to generate the fictitious case citations and fake quotes or to draft any portion of the filings to make a determination on the present issue.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“citing nonexistent case law or misrepresenting the holdings of a case is making a false statement to a court. It does not matter if generative AI told you so.”
“The Court finds that, through their own admissions, all four attorneys failed to verify the legal authorities cited in their respective filings in violation of Rule 11 ... Sanctions ... are warranted as to them all.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
As a senior judge since April 2025, she continues to carry an active caseload including Social Security appeals, civil-rights and employment suits, prisoner habeas petitions, insurance and construction-contract disputes, and general civil litigation across the Aberdeen, Greenville, and Oxford divisions. The sample now spans both her recent sanctions practice and a broad cross-section of ordinary dispositive-motion rulings.
Put Judge Aycock's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Aycock actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Aycock's own signed orders and cites them.