Black Panther voter-intimidation debacle still gnaws at nation's values

J. Christian Adams

is an election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice and is author of Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department

Most who have seen the video of the New Black Panthers standing in front of a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 have well-settled opinions about the matter. However, with the presidential election next year, and with the injunction that barred the baton-wielding King Samir Shabazz from appearing at city polling places set to expire, it's worth considering some facts you might not have heard before.

As we know, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation lawsuit against the Panthers in the final days of the Bush administration. I was one of the four lawyers who brought the case. It was dismissed entirely a few months after President Obama's inauguration, apart from a temporary slap on the wrist for Shabazz. The dismissal occurred despite a default being entered against all of the Panther defendants because they never responded.

In hindsight, the case marked the first in a series of controversies that have sullied Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general. The Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal is the latest. Though some regard the Black Panther dismissal as "no big deal," few are making that argument about thousands of American guns killing hundreds of people in Mexico.

Perhaps it is a good time to debunk a few of the myths surrounding the dismissal of the Panther case - especially because we now have facts from internal Department of Justice reports and sworn testimony.

First, there was sworn testimony from eyewitnesses that voters indeed turned away at the sight of the club-wielding Black Panthers. A favorite canard of Holder's defenders has been that no voters were affected. Multiple eyewitnesses, including Chris Hill and Bartle Bull, testified under oath to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that they saw voters intimidated by the Panthers.