New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case

Two weeks before George W. Bush left office, the New Black Panther Party and two of its members, Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, were sued by the Department of Justice on claims of voter intimidation for their conduct outside a polling station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The dismissals led to accusations that the Obama administration's Department of Justice was biased against white victims and unwilling to prosecute minorities for civil rights violations.

These charges were most notably made by J. Christian Adams, who in May 2010 resigned his post in the Department of Justice in protest over the Obama administration's alleged mishandling of the case, and by his former supervisor Christopher Coates.

[3] The conduct 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, Democratic voting district of Philadelphia.

[4] Two members of the New Black Panther Party, Minister King Samir Shabazz, and Jerry Jackson, stood in front of the entrance to the polling station in uniforms that have been described as military or paramilitary.

[5][6] Minister King Samir Shabazz carried a billy club, and is reported to have pointed it at voters while both men shouted racial slurs,[7] including phrases such as "white devil" and "you're about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.

"[14] Questions about the validity of this explanation served as the basis for subsequent controversy over the case, which was investigated by the United States Commission on Civil Rights,[5] Republican members of Congress,[4] and the DOJ.

Employees who worked the Brown case have described being harassed by colleagues due to the widespread belief that civil rights laws should not be used to protect white voters.

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?"

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.

[29] 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.

[17] In December 2010, the Civil Rights Commission released a report concluding that their investigations had uncovered "numerous specific examples of open hostility and opposition" within the Department of Justice to pursuing cases in which whites were the victims.

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.

He has subsequent to his employment at the DOJ worked as a conservative activist, and argued forcefully for voter ID legislation and has without evidence alleged that there is an "alien invasion" at the voting booth.

McCarthy referred to the comment by Bartle 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 the fact that it was highly unusual for the case to be dismissed after a default judgment against the defendants had already been won.

[45] In reply to McCarthy, Thernstrom 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 added that as she learned more about the case, she became doubtful 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.

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.

[50] Attorney General Holder 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.

[10] The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Post pointed out that although the Department of Justice dismissed Adams' testimony as that of a partisan hired during the Bush Administration, Coates is of a different pedigree 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,[47] and was hired by the Justice Department during the Clinton Administration in 1996.

[52] A Newsweek op-ed implied that this is because the case was not newsworthy and that the conservative media is attempting to stage "an effective piece of political theater that hurts the Obama administration".

[53] Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which lists the NBPP as a hate group, described the conservative media's handling of the case as amounting to a "tempest in a teacup".