Judges have been quick to express their ire and impatience with attorneys who use generative artificial intelligence (GAI) for court filings without checking for accuracy or AI hallucinations. If a recent ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is any barometer, they won’t be any more forgiving of their bench-sitting brethren.
In a ruling issued on October 22, 2026, the three-judge panel took U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate of the Southern District of Mississippi behind the legal version of a woodshed. The panel vacated his August 2025 preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Mississippi’s House Bill 1193 (HB 1193) and ordered the case reassigned to another judge.
The AI problems originated in an earlier order: Wingate’s July 2025 temporary restraining order (TRO), which initially blocked enforcement of the law. He subsequently replaced that error-ridden order, but the replacement still contained a nonexistent case citation. His later preliminary-injunction order incorporated the replacement TRO by reference, carrying the problem into the ruling the Fifth Circuit reviewed.
Writing for the majority, Judge Jerry Smith criticized Wingate’s “extraordinarily grave errors” and questioned whether “he even tried in good faith to follow the law.” Judge Kurt Engelhardt joined Smith’s opinion. Judge Catharina Haynes concurred only in its final paragraph and wrote separately, agreeing with the disposition without joining the majority’s broader reasoning.
The First Amendment battle over HB 1193, which restricts diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and practices in Mississippi’s public educational institutions, remains unresolved. But with the order to reassign the case, its next chapter will unfold before a different district judge.
‘Smacking of Prejudgment’ and ‘Lacks Thoroughness’
Signed into law in April 2025, HB 1193 restricts diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Mississippi’s public K–12 schools, colleges, and universities. Beyond prohibiting specified DEI practices, it establishes an enforcement framework and includes protections for student expression. Subject to statutory exceptions, it also prohibits promoting or endorsing specified “divisive concepts” concerning race, sex, gender identity, and ethnicity.
In July 2025, Wingate issued a TRO temporarily blocking enforcement of HB 1193. His reasoning addressed First Amendment protections and the void-for-vagueness doctrine, a due-process principle concerning laws that fail to provide sufficiently clear standards.
The initial TRO drew scrutiny after state defendants identified numerous inaccuracies, including people who were not parties to the case, false quotations from the legislation, and references to declarations absent from the record. Wingate replaced the order after the state sought clarification, but a citation to a nonexistent Fourth Circuit case remained. That citation surfaced at appellate oral argument.
The controversy also drew an inquiry from Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Wingate acknowledged that a law clerk had used AI to assist with drafting and that an unfinished draft had mistakenly been filed. He maintained that the errors did not undermine the legal basis for blocking enforcement.
Dropping the Niceties, Indeed
The panel didn’t buy Judge Wingate’s stance. Smith accused him of acting “apparently to satisfy a policy agenda” and criticized both the errors and the legal analysis supporting the preliminary injunction.
A central issue was Wingate’s treatment of Moody v. NetChoice (2024). That Supreme Court decision sets out a framework for evaluating facial First Amendment challenges: Courts must identify a law’s scope, determine its constitutional and unconstitutional applications, and compare the two. Smith concluded that Wingate had not performed the required analysis.
The opinion also gave instructions for the judge who receives the case on remand. Among other things, the majority interpreted HB 1193 as regulating educational institutions and educators. It construed the provision concerning state-funded student-group events as restricting school administrations from using those events to evade the law, not as directly regulating students simply because they belong to a publicly funded organization.
The Fifth Circuit’s decision vacates the preliminary injunction without resolving the constitutional challenge. The order's final paragraph states that the “plaintiffs have a high burden to show that this policy is unlawful,” and that the court should lean heavily on Moody when ruling on whether its provisions safeguard First Amendment rights or strangle them instead.
