A New York City Law Department attorney came under fire Tuesday from a federal appeals court panel hearing arguments on the city's bid to wipe out a $355,000 award of punitive damages against three police officers responsible for beating a Black man who called for their help in 2014.

For more than 35 minutes, members of the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit directed a withering round of questioning at Jesse Townsend, senior counsel at the law department, who argued that a Brooklyn federal magistrate judge had erred in letting the "excessive" jury award stand in a second damages trial, despite an earlier decision capping the amount of punitive damages each of the NYPD officers could face.