OMM Redaksiyası
An Arizona man convicted of killing Christopher Pelkey in a road-rage shooting will be resentenced after an appeals court ruled that an AI-generated video of the victim should not have been shown in court.
Gabriel Paul Horcasitas, 55, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of shooting Pelkey, 37, during a confrontation at a red light in 2021. The BBC reported that Horcasitas’s legal team appealed the sentence, arguing that the trial judge should not have allowed the video, made by Pelkey’s family, to be shown before sentencing.
Why the sentence was overturned
The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that Horcasitas must be resentenced, saying the video “crossed that line”.
“Rather than document 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 wrote.
Horcasitas’s lawyer, Kristen Reller, who filed the appeal, declined to comment to the BBC on Friday. Jessica Gattuso, an attorney for victims in the case, did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
What the AI video showed
Pelkey’s sister, Stacey Wales, told the BBC last year that the family used voice recordings, videos and photographs to recreate him in the clip.
In court in 2025, the AI-generated version of Pelkey, wearing a grey baseball cap, addressed Horcasitas: “To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances. In another life, we probably could have been friends.”
The video also portrayed Pelkey as saying: “I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have and I still do.”
At the sentencing, Judge Todd Lang praised the video, saying he heard forgiveness in it and describing that sentiment as genuine.
