Voter Intimidation Alive And Well In America

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has begun an official inquiry into the dismissal in May of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party and two of its members who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during the November general elections.

The inquiry is disclosed in an Aug. 28 letter to Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who first raised questions about the dismissal in May and asked unsuccessfully that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. make available the head of the department's Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division for a closed-door briefing on the decision.

"I am pleased that someone at the Justice Department is finally taking the dismissal of the New Black Panther Party case seriously," Mr. Smith said Wednesday. "The Justice Department's decision to drop a case against political allies who allegedly intimidated voters on Election Day 2008 reeks of political interference."

Mr. Smith said the department's refusal to provide Congress with an explanation for the dismissal "only further raises concerns that political favoritism played a role in this case."

In January, the Justice Department filed a civil complaint in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia against the New Black Panther Party, claiming two of its members in black berets, black combat boots, black shirts and black jackets with military insignias intimidated voters with racial insults, slurs and a nightstick. A third party member was accused of managing, directing and endorsing their behavior.

The complaint said two New Black Panthers engaged in "coercion, threats and intimidation racial threats and insults menacing and intimidating gestures and movements directed at individuals who were present to vote." It said that unless prohibited by court sanctions, they would continue to direct intimidation, threats and coercion at voters and potential voters "by again deploying uniformed and armed members at the entrance to polling locations in future elections, both in Philadelphia and throughout the country."

The original incident was captured on videotape and gained national attention after the video was distributed on YouTube.

The Times first reported the decision to dismiss the complaint in May and later reported that Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the department's No. 3 political appointee, had approved the decision even after the government had won judgments against the New Black Panthers for their actions.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights also has demanded that the Justice Department explain the dismissal, saying a previous response "paints the department in a poor light."