New York City’s controversial chokehold ban — dubbed the “diaphragm law”— is back on the books after a new appeals court ruling Thursday.
The law, passed by the City Council in the wake of George Floyd’s in-custody death, made it possible for officers to be charged with a misdemeanor crime if they do anything during an arrest that restricts a person’s breathing “in any way.”
The law was struck down by Supreme Court Justice Laurence Love as “unconstitutionally vague” last June on a legal challenge from the police unions.
The state’s Supreme Court Appellate Division fully rejected that argument in a ruling Thursday morning, saying the lower court “should not have found the diaphragm compression ban to be unconstitutionally vague,” the New York Post reports.
