U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis, who oversees both lawsuits filed by Kilmar Abrego Garcia against U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, a decade ago was criticized by conservatives during her confirmation process due to her previous position a partner at the law firm retained to sued City of Baltimore.
Though not part of the case, Xinis was a partner at the firm, Murphy, Falcon and Murphy, when it successfully obtained a $6.4 million settlement from Baltimore for the death of Freddie Gray, who allegedly fled from police and was found with an illegal switchblade knife before dying from a severe injury to his spinal cord while in police custody.
Gray was injured on April 12, 2015, after he was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) following a foot pursuit through multiple housing complexes. The injury occurred as he was being transported in a police van.
Immediate facts around the case were murky, with the BPD Commissioner quickly acknowledging that police, “failed to get him medical attention in a timely manner multiple times,” and reports indicating BPD was accused of deliberately driving vehicles to cause injuries to occupants.
Nonetheless, another prisoner who was inside police van during the incident claimed he heard Gray “trying to injure himself.”
Gray’s autopsy ultimately showed he suffered a singular “high-energy” injury that experts said likely occurred after he stood up inside the back of the van of his own volition, according to The Daily Caller.
Of the six police officers involved in Gray’s death, three went to trial in Maryland, where they were acquitted following the conclusion of bench trials in July 2016. Prosecutors dropped charges against the remaining three defendants, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed it would not bring federal charges in September 2017.
Despite the facts of the case ultimately leading to acquittals and dropped charges, the City of Baltimore settled the lawsuit brought by the Gray family for $6.4 million on September 9, 2015, less than five months after the incident.
Baltimore’s former mayor claimed the settlement did not indicate guilt, but was “solely in the best interest of the city,” in part by avoiding “costly and protracted litigation,” which could have distracted from the city’s recovery in the aftermath of the riots that followed Gray’s death.
Reported at $6.4 million by The Associated Press, the lawyers at Xinis’ firm secured a settlement 16 times larger than the 2015 limit on damages for such cases, which was then capped at $400,000 per claimant and $800,000 per incident. It has since been raised to $890,000 per claimant, and about $4.5 million per incident, meaning the settlement reached by Xinis’ firm exceeded the maximum amount Gray’s family might have been awarded even a decade later.
Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions noted the role of Xinis’ law firm in the Gray case in May 2016, when he served as a U.S. Senator representing Alabama, in remarks made when Xinis was up for a confirmation vote after being nominated to her lifelong district court judgeship by former President Barack Obama.
“This may have been a totally justified settlement,” said Sessions in May 2016. “But in a big city like Baltimore, when there is civil unrest and huge public attention, cities are under political, if not legal, pressure to reach some sort of financial settlement,” he stated, before noting, “The details were disputed.”
Urging colleagues to vote against her confirmation, Sessions said, “Xinis has built a career of dealing with lawsuits against police and police departments and dealing with complaints against the police.”
He told his colleagues, “I think this nominee has perhaps the most hostile record toward police of any I have seen in a long time.”
Letters from the leadership of the Maryland State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police and Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police were also added to the congressional record by Sessions, with the police union leaders expressing their opposition to Xinis on grounds of her attitude toward law enforcement.
The then-president of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police wrote, “I believe that Ms. Xinis at this time fails to have the requisite temperament and ability to be fair and impartial on matters that directly affect law enforcement.”
Pointing to her “involvement in the civil suit surrounding the Freddie Gray Case,” BPD Lieutenant Gene Ryan, who then led the fraternal order, called Xinis a “consummate advocate,” who lacked sufficient “ability to equitably apply the law” due to her advocacy.
The Maryland State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police President similarly accused Xinis of harboring a “clear bias” against law enforcement, which “culminated with her involvement in the civil suit surrounding the Freddie Gray Case,” during the previous year.
Xinis was ultimately confirmed to her judgeship in a 53-34 decision by the Senate on May 16, 2016. She was largely confirmed along party lines, though 10 Republicans joined Democrats to vote for her confirmation, and 10 more Republicans did not vote.
A decade after being nominated to her judgeship, a letter from a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney may shine light on how her reputation has developed in the legal field.
“[W]e knew we had a terrible draw in the Abrego Garcia case, Judge Xinis,” wrote Attorney August Flentje in his April letter to explain actions taken in the first civil lawsuit filed by Abrego Garcia. “This judge was an activist who would give little regard to the President’s foreign policy authority.”
Flentje later wrote that every DOJ attorney involved in the Abrego Garcia case was “cognizant of the fact that the judge assigned was guaranteed to rule against the Trump Administration.”
Xinis would appear to follow the course of action described by Flentje on the lawsuits filed by Abrego Garcia.
Her most recent ruling in the first civil lawsuit by Abrego Garcia required U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to give Abrego Garcia’s attorneys advanced notice if they planned to arrest him, which resulted in Abrego Garcia being directed to report to the ICE Baltimore Field Office three days after he was released from DOJ custody in Tennessee last Friday.
In an apparent effort to comply with Xinis’ order, Abrego Garica’s attorneys were then informed that he would be deported to Uganda.
Following this revelation, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed a second civil lawsuit against Secretary Kristi Noem and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which included a habeas corpus petition, as well as various claims of due process violations related to his detainment and deportation. It was quickly assigned to Xinis.
Xinis ruled in favor of Abrego Garcia in an oral ruling on Monday, when she notified the Trump administration it was “absolutely forbidden” from deporting the alleged human smuggler until she is able to issue a more complete ruling.
Abrego Garcia was detained in Tennessee after being returned to the state when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi unsealed the indictment alleging he spent nearly a decade embroiled in a human smuggling ring, which the Trump administration previously argued fulfilled the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered the return of Abrego Garcia to be facilitated by the federal government.
The federal human smuggling case against Abrego Garcia stems from his November 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, which The Tennessee Star first reported in April. A Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) spokesman later told The Star that Abrego Garcia was released at the instruction of the “Biden-era FBI,” and DHS released a document confirming troopers suspected human trafficking.
Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the federal human smuggling charges. His trial is currently scheduled for January 2026.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
