(Continued from page 18)

stiff penalties for attacks. The act can leave victims close to death, but unlike blows that produce a black eye or broken nose, it often leaves few, if any, external signs of injury needed to prove a felony assault charge. An attempted murder charge is also hard to sustain in cases where suspects intend to frighten rather than kill their victim. As a result, advocates say, suffocation cases have historically been handled as misdemeanors that don't reflect the act's severity or carry meaningful punishment.
• About 30 states have

passed laws, most in the past decade, making it a felony under certain conditions to knowingly impede someone's breathing. Iowa, South Dakota, California and Tennessee are among recent states to act, and Virginia's governor signed a law just last week. A New York law that took effect in 2010 added three classifications, from a misdemeanor requiring no proof of physical injury to a Class "C'' felony, and yielded more than 11,000 charges in its first 14 months, according to the office on Domestic Violence Prevention.
• The laws, part of a multi-pronged effort to draw attention to strangulation attempts, come as advocates train police on identifying the more nuanced signs -- including a raspy voice, blood-red eyes from burst capillaries, difficulty breathing and involuntary urination.
• Leading the campaign is the National Family Justice Center Alliance, a San Diego anti-domestic violence group that has received a $400,000 U.S. Justice Department grant to fund a strangulation training institute. The group's executive director, Gael Strack, has traveled the country helping lawmakers draft bills, identifying

(Continued on page 20)