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The New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, sometimes known simply as the Black Panther Case, is a political controversy in the United States concerning an incident which occurred during the 2008 election. During the final weeks of the Bush administration, the New Black Panther Party and two of its members, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, were charged with voter intimidation for their behavior during the election outside a polling station in Philadelphia. The Obama administration's subsequent decision to dismiss the charges against the party and Mr. Jackson, and to reduce the charges against Minister King Shabazz, has led to accusations that the Department of Justice under Obama is displaying favoritism toward black people. These charges have been most notably made by J. Christian Adams, who in June 2010 resigned his post in the Department of Justice out of protest over the Obama Administration's perceived mishandling of the case, and by his former supervisor Christopher Coates.

Counter-accusations have also been made, including that the claims of Mr. Adams and other conservatives are politically motivated. The case and its handling by the Obama administration is currently being investigated by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, as well as by an internal probe conducted by the Department of Justice's office of professional responsibility.

Incident and initial response

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Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, two members of the New Black Panther Party, standing outside a Philadelphia polling station on Election Day in November 2008.

The behavior for which members of the New Black Panther Party were accused of voter intimidation took place on Election Day in November 2008, at a polling station in a predominantly African-American, Democrat voting district of Philadelphia.[1] Two members of the New Black Panther party, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, stood outside the polling station in uniforms that have been described as military or paramilitary.[2][3][4] Minister King Shabazz carried a billy club, and is reported to have pointed it at voters while both men shouted racial slurs,[5] including phrases such as "white devil" and "you're about to be ruled by the black man, cracker."[6] The incident drew the attention of police, who sent King Samir away in part because of his billy club. Jackson was allowed to stay.[7]

No complaints were filed by voters about the incident, although poll watchers witnessed some voters approach the polls and then turn away, apparently in response to the New Black Panther Party members.[8] The incident was captured on videotape, and gained national attention after being uploaded at YouTube.[2]

In January 2009, less than two weeks before the Bush administration left office, the civil rights division of the Department of Justice filed suit under the voting rights act against both men who had stood outside the polling station, as well as against the party and its chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz.[3] The lawsuit accused them of using uniforms, racial insults and a weapon to intimidate voters and those who were there to assist them.[2] In March or April 2009 Bartie Bull, a former civil rights lawyer who was serving as a poll watcher at the polling station where the incident occurred, submitted an affidavit at Justice's request supporting the lawsuit, stating that he considered it to have been the most severe instance of voter intimidation he had ever encountered.[2][5] When none of the defendants appeared in court or made any other attempt to answer the charges, the career attorneys pursuing the lawsuit assumed that they would win it by default. However in May 2009 Loretta King, who was then the head of the division, voluntarily dismissed the charges against the party, Jerry Jackson and Malik Zulu Shabazz.[3][2] Against Minister King Shabazz, the charges were reduced to an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years, an action which was already illegal under existing law.[5]

Reactions to dismissal

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Following their decision to narrow the scope of the case to an injunction against Minister King Shabazz, a spokesman for the Department of Justice stated that "Claims were dismissed against the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."[2] The Department of Justice also stated that the "facts and the law did not support pursuing the claims against three of the defendants", and that "As a result, the department dismissed those claims."[9] Questions about the validity of this explanation have served as the basis for subsequent controversy over the case, which has been investigated by the United States Commission on Civil Rights,[3] Republican members of congress,[1] and two internal investigations within the Department of Justice.[10]

In response to this controversy, the New Black Panther Party has suspended its Philadelphia chapter, and repudiated Minister King Shabazz in a posting at its website.[11] The party has stated that Shabazz made "an honest error" by bringing a billy club to the polling station, and that because of his doing so he had been suspended from the New Black Panther Party until January 2010.[12]

Reactions in congress

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Some members of congress have been critical of the decision to narrow the scope of the case, including Republican representative Frank Wolf of Virginia and Republican representative Lamar Smith of Texas. Mr. Wolf was quoted by the Washington Times as asking, "If showing a weapon, making threatening statements and wearing paramilitary uniforms in front of polling station doors does not constitute voter intimidation, at what threshold of activity would these laws be enforceable?"[9]

Responding to the complaints from congress, DOJ Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich provided the following justifications for narrowing the case:

  • While the NBPP made statements and posted notice that more than 300 of its members would be deployed at polling places throughout the United States during the Nov. 4 elections, the statement and posting did not say any of them would display a weapon or otherwise break the law.
  • While the complaint charged that the NBPP and Mr. Zulu Shabazz endorsed the activities at the polling places, the evidence was "equivocal" since both later disavowed what happened in Philadelphia and suspended that city's chapter after the incident.
  • The charges against Mr. Jackson were dropped because police who responded to the polling place ordered Mr. Samir Shabazz to leave but allowed Mr. Jackson to stay. He also noted that the department approved "appropriately tailored injunctive relief" against Mr. Samir Shabazz for his use of the billy club.

Mr. Smith was not satisfied by these explanations, stating "The administration still has failed to explain why it did not pursue an obvious case of voter intimidation. Refusal to address these concerns only confirms politicization of the issue and does not reflect well on the Justice Department."[9]

In July 2009, Mr. Smith requested a meeting with the head of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section in order to discuss whether political appointees had been involved in the decision to narrow the case, stating that news reports contradicted the justice department's earlier claim that political appointees had not been involved, and that earlier congressional inquiries about this had been unsuccessful.[13] Smith and Wolf also requested that the voter intimidation charges which had been previously been dropped be refiled.[14] In January 2010, after several unsuccessful attempts at obtaining the requested information from the department, Mr. Wolf sought a resolution of inquiry that would have forced the Justice Department to provide Congress with the details of why it narrowed the case. In a vote along party lines, the resolution was defeated 15-14.[15]

In July 2010 seven republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy, calling for a hearing on potential "widespread politicization and possible corruption" in the Justice Department in regard to its decision to narrow the case. The letter quoted the testimony of J. Christian Adams (see below) that within the Civil Rights Division of the department there was "open hostility toward equal enforcement in a colorblind way", and requested a hearing to determine whether Adams' accusation was accurate.[1]

Internal Justice Dept. Investigations

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On August 28 2009, in response to the complaints raised by Lamar Smith, the Department of Justice's internal Office of Professional Responsibility opened an inquiry into the department's handling of the case.[16][17] Mr. Smith praised the decision, stating "I am pleased that someone at the Justice Department is finally taking the dismissal of the New Black Panther Party case seriously."[16]

On September 13 2010, the Department of Justice's inspector general Glenn A. Fine announced that he was opening a second investigation, focusing not on the New Black Panther case specifically but on the more general question of whether the Justice Department enforces voting rights laws "in a non-discriminatory manner,"[10] as well as whether voting section employees have been harassed for investigating or prosecuting particular matters.[18] Reps. Smith and Wolf have both expressed approval of this decision also.[10]

Civil Rights Commission

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On June 16 2009, the United States Commission on Civil Rights sent a letter to the civil rights division of the Department of Justice questioning their decision to drop the case, stating "Though it had basically won the case, the [Civil Rights Division] took the unusual move of voluntarily dismissing the charges. The division's public rationale would send the wrong message entirely — that attempts at voter suppression will be tolerated and will not be vigorously prosecuted so long as the groups or individuals who engage in them fail to respond to the charges leveled against them."[9] The commission received a response to its letter on June 20 from Portia Roberson, the Department of Justice's director of the Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison. Roberson's response stated that the case was dropped because "the facts and the law" did not support pursuing it. According to the commission, Ms. Roberson's letter did not respond to the commission's question whether there were any past cases in which the department's Civil Rights Division had dismissed charges against a defendant accused of voter intimidation, and what its evidentiary and legal standards were for dismissing such charges.[19]

On August 7 2009, The Civil Rights Commission sent a second letter to the Department of Justice, stating that the department had been "largely non-responsive" to its previous inquiry, accusing it of failing to cooperate with investigations into why it dropped some of the charges, and again requesting the detailed information which the commission had requested in its first letter.[19] In early September 2009, after still not receiving what it considered a satisfactory response from the department, the commission voted to investigate "the merits of the NBPP enforcement actions (regardless of how the decisions were made) and the potential impact on future voter-intimidation enforcement by the department." In a third letter to the department, the Civil Rights Commission asked attorney general Eric Holder to name a Justice Department official to provide the information necessary for its investigation.[20]

In December 2009, the civil rights commission subpoenaed J. Christian Adams and Christopher Coates, the lead attorneys who had been involved in prosecuting the New Black Panther Party, to testify on why some of the complaints had been dismissed.[21] The justice department told Mr. Adams and Mr. Coates not to comply with the subpoena, stating that the authority to initiate criminal prosecution of anyone lies with the justice department, not with the Civil Rights Commission.[22] Later that month, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez removed Coates from his post and transferred him to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina.[21] Perez subsequently disallowed Coates from testifying before the Civil Rights commission, stating that this was because his post in South Carolina caused him to not be "the appropriate witness to testify regarding current [Civil Rights] Division policies", leading the Washington Times to accuse Perez of transferring Coates specifically in order to remove him from the commission's subpoena jurisdiction.[23]

J. Christian Adams

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See also: J. Christian Adams

On May 14th 2010, J. Christian Adams resigned from his post as a trial attorney for the voting section of the Department of Justice. In his resignation letter and a subsequent article written by him for the Washington Times, Adams stated that the reason for his resignation was his disapproval of the department's handling of the Black Panther case, and more specifically their demand that he not comply with the subpoena from the Civil Rights Commission.[24][25]

In testimony before the Civil Rights commission, Adams stated "I was told by voting section management that cases are not going to be brought against black defendants on [behalf] of white victims."[26] Adams has also accused the lawyers who ordered the narrowing of the case of having not read the documents describing the facts and applicable law before making this decision, and claimed that his superiors had instructed him and others in the voting section to no longer bring any cases against minority offenders. Responding to the claim that the New Black Panthers' actions in Philadelphia were an "isolated incident", Adams has said "To the contrary, the Black Panthers in October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters."[25]

Two other attorneys who worked alongside Adams in the in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, Hans A. von Spakovsky and Karl Bowers, have submitted affidavits to the Civil Rights commission corroborating aspects of Adams' testimony.[27][28] According to Spakovsky, internal e-mails from the Department of Justice released under a Freedom of Information Act request also show that political appointees were "intimately involved" in the decision to drop the case, contradicting testimony that Thomas Perez gave under oath before the Civil Rights Commission.[29]

Responding to Adams' testimony, Thomas Perez has stated that there was insufficient evidence to support the case,[3] and Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has said, "The department makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved."[4] Critics of Adams' testimony have also questioned Adams' impartiality because he was hired during the Bush administration, at a time when the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice has been accused of deliberately seeking out conservatives. In response, Adams has pointed out that several independent reviewers of his performance in the Department of Justice had concluded that he was a "model attorney" who enforced voting laws in a race-neutral fashion, and that the reviewers reaching this conclusion included Loretta King, who supervised the dismissal of the Black Panther case.[30]

Abigail Thernstrom

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See also: Abigail Thernstrom

Abigail Thernstrom, the co-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, has been a vocal critic of the investigations over the Black Panther case. In an interview with CBS News, Thernstrom has said that she believes "the evidence is extremely weak" that the Department of Justice has discriminated against white voters.[31] Thernstrom has also explained her opinion on the case in an article for National Review, in which she refers to the Black Panther case as "very small potatoes". Therstrom states, "There are plenty of grounds on which to sharply criticize the attorney general — his handling of terrorism questions, just for starters — but this particular overblown attack threatens to undermine the credibility of his conservative critics."[32]

Thernstrom's stance has been sharply criticized by other conservatives such as federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who wrote a response to Thernstrom in a later issue of National Review. He points out that a year earlier Thernstrom had been among those criticizing the Obama administration's decision to dismiss the case, and that she had not explained the reason for her reversal of opinion. McCarthy also mentions the opinion of democratic civil rights lawyer Bartie Bull, who witnessed the incident, that it was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever encountered in his life; as well as that it was highly unusual for the case to be dismissed after a default judgment against the defendants had already been won.[33] In a response to McCarthy's article, Thernstrom has clarified her opinion by stating that "I still have questions about DOJ’s conduct, and I remain interested in knowing more about why the department declined to pursue the case." However, she also stated that as she learned more about the Black Panther case, she became doubtful that it was as severe an example of voter intimidation as it first appeared to be, and was of the opinion that "the incident was not of sufficient importance to be the primary focus of our yearlong project."[34]

Christopher Coates

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See also: Christopher Coates

In his testimony before the Civil Rights Commission, J. Christian Adams stated that his accusations could be corroborated by Christopher Coates,[8] the former head of the voting section of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division who had led the original investigation of the New Black Panther Party.[35] The Department refused to allow Coates to testify.[8] In September 2010, Coates was granted whistleblower protection and testified before the Civil Rights Commission in defiance of his supervisors' instructions.[36]

Coates' testimony included accusations similar to those made by J. Christian Adams, stating, "I had people who told me point-blank that [they] didn't come to the voting rights section to sue African American people."[36] He compared the Black Panther case to an earlier case from 2006, in which Department of Justice attorneys expressed anger at having to investigate Ike Brown, a black democratic politician in Mississippi accused of discriminating against white voters. Coates testified that the Justice Department's administration's decision to drop the Black Panther Case "was intended to send a direct message to people inside and outside the civil rights division. That message is that the filing of voting cases like the Ike Brown and the NBPP cases would not continue in the Obama administration."[37] Coates also stated that one of his superiors appointed by the Obama administration had prohibited him from asking job applicants if they would enforce the voting laws in a race-neutral manner.[38] Attorney General Eric Holder has emphatically denied these claims, stating "The notion that we are enforcing any Civil Rights laws, voting or other, on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender is simply false."[39]

In response to Coates' testimony, Allan Lichtman has argued that the Voting Rights act was specifically intended to correct historic injustices against minorities, stating that "You can try to force [the Voting Rights Act] to be equal, but it's not."[37] However, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Post have also pointed out that although the Department of Justice has dismissed J. Christian Adams as a partisan hired during the Bush administration, Coates has a pedigree different from many conservatives and cannot be ignored as easily. Coates worked for the American Civil Liberties Union for nearly 20 years, receiving the Thurgood Marshall Decade Award from the Georgia NAACP in 1991,[35] and was hired by the Justice Department during the Clinton administration in 1996.[36]

Media coverage

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As of July 2010, the Black Panther case has been receiving more coverage from conservative media outlets than liberal ones.[40] Newsweek has claimed that this is because the case is not actually newsworthy, and the conservative media is only attempting to stage "an effective piece of political theater that hurts the Obama administration."[41] Alternately the Washington Times, which has covered the case in detail, has accused the liberal media of failing to cover the story because liberal sources are reluctant to criticize the Obama administration.[42] According to a July 2010 article by the Washington Post Ombudsman, the Post received numerous complaints from readers about their lack of coverage of the story, and agreed that the case deserved more coverage than it received and would be given more of it in the future. While acknowledging that "ideology and party politics are at play" in the lack of coverage prior to this, the Post also stated that the delay in coverage was "a result of limited staffing and a heavy volume of other news on the Justice Department beat."[43]

Megyn Kelly's interview of J. Christian Adams on Fox News has been particularly controversial, receiving both praise for raising important questions and criticism for promoting the story in a perceived attempt to hurt the Obama administration.[44] New Black Panther Party chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz has accused Fox News of contributing to racial tensions as part of "a right-wing Republican conspiracy",[45] and other members of the party have made similar accusations, referring to the station as "Fox Jews".[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Republicans Push For New Black Panther Hearing". CBS News, July 27, 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Career lawyers overruled on voting case". The Washington Times, May 29, 2009.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Racial Motive Alleged in a Justice Dept. Decision". The New York Times, July 6, 2010.
  4. ^ a b "2008 voter-intimidation case against New Black Panthers riles the right". The Washington Post, July 15, 2010.
  5. ^ a b c "Holder's Black Panther Stonewall". The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2009.
  6. ^ "Ex-Justice Dept lawyer says whites' rights ignored". The Associated Press, July 1, 2010.
  7. ^ a b "Black activist blames 'Fox Jews' for fanning ire". The Associated Press. August 9, 2010.
  8. ^ a b c "U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing erupts in shouting". CNN, August 14, 2010.
  9. ^ a b c d No. 3 at Justice OK'd Panther reversal. The Washington Times, July 30, 2009.
  10. ^ a b c Probe in New Black Panther case. The Washington Post, September 14, 2010.
  11. ^ Right call on the Black Panthers. The Washington Post, October 4, 2010.
  12. ^ Panthers deem flap over voting 'error'. The Washington Times, April 26, 2010.
  13. ^ Senior Republican wants answers on Panther case. The Washington Times, July 31, 2009.
  14. ^ Lawmakers seek refiling in Panther case. The Washington Times, July 31, 2009.
  15. ^ House panel rejects Panther resolution. The Washington Times, January 14, 2010.
  16. ^ a b Inquiry opened into New Black Panther case. The Washington Times, September 9, 2009.
  17. ^ Internal probe in handling of Philly voting case. The Guardian, September 9 2009.
  18. ^ DOJ IG will review voting rights section. The Associated Press, September 13, 2010.
  19. ^ a b 'Non-responsive' Justice Dept. pressed again on Panthers case. The Washington Times, August 8, 2009.
  20. ^ U.S. panel chides Holder in Panther probe. The Washington Times, October 1, 2009.
  21. ^ a b Justice Dept. moves Panthers pursuer to S.C.. The Washington Times, December 29, 2009.
  22. ^ Justice Department restrains lawyers in Panther probe. The Washington Times, December 16, 2009.
  23. ^ Justice stiffs Civil Rights Commission. The Washington Times, August 17, 2010.
  24. ^ J. Christian Adams' resignation letter. May 14, 2010. Published online by Scribd.com May 18, 2010.
  25. ^ a b Inside the Black Panther case. The Washington Times, June 25, 2010.
  26. ^ Anti-white bias at the Justice Department? The Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2010.
  27. ^ Affidavit of Hans von Spakovsky
  28. ^ Affidavit of Karl Bowers
  29. ^ New Black Panther Party Case Update: E-mails Call into Question the DOJ’s Story. National Review, September 20, 2010.
  30. ^ Former DOJ Lawyer Alleges Racial Bias, Resigns. NPR. July 13, 2010.
  31. ^ No Proof in New Black Panther Case: Official. CBS News. July 25, 2010.
  32. ^ The New Black Panther Case: A Conservative Dissent. National Review, July 6, 2010
  33. ^ The Case Against the New Black Panthers. National Review, July 20, 2010.
  34. ^ Yes, the Black Panther Case Is Small Potatoes. National Review, July 27, 2010.
  35. ^ a b More testimony shows a bias against neutrality. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 3, 2010.
  36. ^ a b c Justice lawyer alleges bias at agency. The Washington Post, September 25, 2010.
  37. ^ a b New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case: 'Bombshell' for Obama?. The Christian Science Monitor, September 24, 2010.
  38. ^ Official alleges racially selective enforcement of voting rights cases. CNN, September 25, 2010.
  39. ^ Holder rejects charge victim's race is factor in civil rights cases. CNN, October 04, 2010.
  40. ^ Conservative Media Stokes New Black Panther Story. NPR, July 20, 2010.
  41. ^ The New Black Panther Party Is the New ACORN. Newsweek, July 14, 2010.
  42. ^ Media blackout for Black Panthers. The Washington Times, July 2, 2010.
  43. ^ Why the silence from The Post on Black Panther Party story? The Washington Post, July 18, 2010.
  44. ^ Fox's Megyn Kelly Taking Center Stage. The Associated Press, July 26, 2010.
  45. ^ New Black Panther Party Accuses FOX News Of Fueling Racial Tensions, Fear. The Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2010.
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