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Just in time for the slow news cycle before the run-up to the midterm elections, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney's charge that racial bias motivated the DOJ's decision to scale back a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense (NBPP) has FOX news and conservative bloggers in going for blood, liberal bloggers seeing conspiracies, and major mainstream news outlets and personalities falling over themselves to make up for not having pushed the story.
In early July, attorney J. Christian Adams, told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter the government's actions in the NBPP case is part of a failure on the part of both the Obama and Bush Administrations to enforce voting laws in a "race-neutral" manner.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been holding hearings for months, but so far, all that has emerged is evidence of a dispute between lawyers about the viability of the DOJ case.
The Case
First, some background. The New Black Panther Party is a black nationalist organization led by an attorney named Malik Zulu Shabazz that has been categorized as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. The founders and former leaders of the original Black Panther Party explicitly reject them because of their racist message. On Nov. 4, 2008, the day that Barack Obama was elected president,two members of the NBPP stood outside of a polling place in Philadelphia dressed in black and wearing berets and boots. Witnesses said the men hurled insults at black and white voters and poll watchers. One of the men held a billy club:
In January, 2009, the Justice Department filed a complaint in the United States District Court in Philadelphia against the two men, Minister King Shamir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, as well as Malik Zulu Shabazz and the NBPP as an organization. The complaint accused Shamir Shabazz and Jackson, the two men in the video, of intimidating voters and poll watchers, and further charged that Zulu Shabazz and the NBPP "managed, directed and endorsed the behavior, actions and statements" of the two men. Because the NBPP never responded to the complaint, the judge told the DOJ to enter a petition asking that a judgment be entered against the NBPP by default.
However, when that petition was entered May 15, 2009, it only targeted Shamir Shabazz. The subsequent judgment bars Shamir Shabbazz from bringing a weapon within 100 feet of a polling place.
Members of the Civil Rights Commission were shocked by the Justice Department decision to back away from a judgment it was about to win. Political scientist Carol Swain, who is affiliated with the Commission, published an August 2009 essay in the Huffington Post that said, "What should have been an open and shut case now has become more troubling ... "
The Investigation
Commission Vice Chair Abigail Thernstrom and Commissioner Ashley Taylor sent a letter to Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King demanding an explanation (.pdf)
"We are gravely concerned about the Civil Rights Division’s actions in this case and feel strongly that the dismissal of this case weakens the agency’s moral obligation to prevent voting rights violations, including acts of voter intimidation or vote suppression. We cannot understand the rationale for this case’s dismissal and fear that it will confuse the public on how the Department of Justice will respond to claims of voter intimidation or voter suppression in the future."
That explanation was contained in this May 13 document by DOJ lawyers explaining that many of the charges filed in the original suit might not withstand a judge's scrutiny or hold up in the event of a trial. The original complaint cited the Panthers' dress and stance as part of their intimidating behavior, but the DOJ attorneys worried that a court might deem that "expressive behavior" protected by the First Amendment. They said accusation that the Zulu Shabazz and the NBPP planned or condoned the behavior
