An Arizona appeals court has vacated the prison sentence of Gabriel Horcasitas after a video generated by AI depicted the man he killed delivering a message during sentencing.

Horcasitas, 54, had been convicted of manslaughter and endangerment, as reported by The New York Post.

The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Horcasitas must be sentenced again. His sentence of 10½ years stemmed from the 2021 shooting death of Christopher Pelkey during a road rage confrontation.

An Arizona man’s 10-year manslaughter sentence has been tossed in a case where a video generated by artificial intelligence portrayed the deceased victim addressing a judge before the punishment was imposed.https://t.co/UvXbZzPGPW

— Michelle L. Price (@michellelprice) October 2, 2026

The appeals court found that the AI video was “not reliable” and amounted to a “fundamental error.”

According to the ruling, its use prejudiced the judge and made the sentencing “fundamentally unfair.”

Pelkey appeared in the video to forgive Horcasitas from beyond the grave. The presentation was played in court before the judge imposed the prison sentence.

Pelkey’s family created the digital version of him, which depicted him wearing a gray ball cap without a logo, an olive green hoodie and a full beard.

His mouth did not always keep pace with the words being delivered.

“I believe in forgiveness and God who forgives. I always have, and still do,” the AI version of the 37 year old Pelkey said.

The video incorporated a real photograph of Pelkey that had been processed through an “old age” filter.

His sister, Stacey Wales, wrote the script that the digital version of her late brother delivered.

Wales told AZ Family that she wanted to give Pelkey a voice in the case concerning his death. The result placed words written by a surviving family member into an AI depiction of the victim.

After the video was shown, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Todd Lang said he “loved that AI,” calling it “genuine.”

Lang said the presentation gave Pelkey a chance “to speak from his heart.”

Lang then sentenced Horcasitas to more than 10 years in prison. That punishment went beyond the sentence prosecutors had requested, according to the source account.

The appeals court noted that “no Arizona case has addressed the admissibility of an AI-generated depiction of a victim offered as a victim impact statement.”

The judges therefore looked to an earlier Arizona Supreme Court case for guidance.

According to court documents, the Court of Appeals was “guided by” the Arizona Supreme Court’s analysis in State v. Rose.

That case involved Edward James Rose, who was sentenced to death for the 2007 killing of a Phoenix police officer.

Rose challenged photographs showing the officer’s sons at their father’s grave, arguing that the images were too prejudicial.

The Arizona Supreme Court found that those photographs came “uncomfortably close” to crossing the line, but did not go over it.

The appeals court reached a different conclusion about the Pelkey video. “By contrast, the AI video crossed that line.

Unlike the photographs in Rose, which captured a particularly poignant moment for the young surviving victims, the AI video here (excluding the embedded ‘real’ videos of the victim) does not reflect actual events,” the court wrote Wednesday.

“Indeed, rather than documenting an event or recording a particular moment, the AI video presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim’s sister,” the court added.

Horcasitas shot and killed Pelkey in 2021 after Pelkey approached his car during a road rage confrontation in Chandler, about 25 miles outside Phoenix.

The appeals court left Horcasitas’ manslaughter conviction in place while vacating his sentence.

Horcasitas was initially convicted of manslaughter and endangerment in 2023.

He received a new trial because of a prosecution evidence disclosure failure, but he was again found guilty of both charges during the 2025 retrial and will now return for resentencing.

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