News
Luff Law Firm Wins Significant Appellate Victory
The Luff Law Firm is pleased to report it has won a significant victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Last week, the 11th Circuit handed down its opinion in Joseph Mink v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. Smith & Nephew recalled their Birmingham Hip Replacement system, a metal-on-metal hip implant, in 2012, but not before they had tricked Joe Mink into...Read More
Is the Bar to Blame for the Public Defender Crisis?
There have been a number of articles lately regarding the dire state of state public defender systems. This has left me wondering whether state bar associations share some of the blame for the public defender crisis. First, it bears considering what exactly the problem is. In many areas, there are insufficient numbers of employees in public defender offices to adequately satisfy the need for these...Read More
Bootstrapping Convictions
The presumption of innocence and the requirement that the state prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are two (if not the two) bedrock principles in criminal law. Yet when a defendant is on probation is charged with another crime, the probation revocation hearing throws both principles out the window. When a defendant is placed on probation, one of the...Read More
Presumption Problems in Consensual Encounters
Traditionally, the law has divided interactions between citizens and police into three types: consensual encounters, investigative detentions, and arrests. In order to initiate these interactions, police require increasing levels of suspicion of criminal activity, and these distinctions are the basis for differing levels of protections under the Fourth Amendment. A police officer may initiate a consensual encounter even in...Read More
Obergefell, RFRA, and the Texas AG
Yesterday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton published an opinion arguing that state officials are not required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as required by Obergefell v. Hodges if their religious beliefs preclude them from doing so. The problem is that aside from a conclusory invocation of the First Amendment, the apparent source of the religious exemption is the Religious Freedom...Read More
Welcome from the Luff Law Firm
Before our firm’s founder Patrick Luff went into practice, he spent several years as a professor of law, publishing a number of scholarly works during that time. Patrick will bring the same thoughtful and thorough analysis to this blog as he regularly updates other lawyers, judges, academics, and the general public on recent developments in Texas and federal law...Read More