By Mr. Curmudgeon
"I think it's a political witch hunt,” said the man in the snappy jumpsuit and black beret, “part of the overall war that the Republicans are waging against Eric Holder in general.” With friends like Malik Zulu Shabazz, party chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Attorney General Holder doesn’t need enemies. Mr. Shabazz was referring to the controversy surrounding Holder’s decision not to prosecute Panther members who hurled racial epithets and generally intimidated voters at a Philadelphia polling place. Shabazz insists his goons carried bludgeons in response to a possible threat posed by neo-Nazis lurking in a nearby parking lot. One of the Panthers, Jerry Jackson, is a credentialed poll watcher for Philadelphia’s 14th Ward Democratic Committee.
Though the incident was video taped and posted on YouTube, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch explained in a letter to Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) that Justice’s decision not to prosecute was due to a lack of “evidentiary support” indicating “directed” intimidation.
Rep. Wolf sent a follow-up letter to Holder. One of the many questions Wolf asked was if Justice contacted “the Southern Poverty Law Center and/or Anti-Defamation League, which list the New Black Panther Party as a hate group along with the KKK and American Nazi Party…” Wolf’s questions remain unanswered.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is equally perplexed. In a letter to Justice sent last August, the commission admonished Holder, saying, “We believe the Department’s defense of its actions thus far undermines respect for rule of law.”
During the hotly contested Florida vote in 2000, where charges of black voter intimidation were leveled, Eric Holder told Salon.com the allegations should be investigated to put “things in place so you don’t have a repeat of the problems that you’ve discovered.” Both Holder and chairman Shabazz don’t believe the same holds true for the Black Panthers.
The Justice Department order dismissing the case reads:
“The Defendants New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, Malik Zulu Shabass, and Jerry Jackson have not filed an answer or motion for summary judgment. These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41 (a)(1)(A) to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants: New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, Malik Zulu Shabazz, and Jerry Jackson. The United States dismisses the claim against these Defendants without prejudice.”
That’s quite a novel prosecutorial approach. If defendants won’t defend, prosecutors won’t prosecute. Had Al Capone only known, he wouldn’t have wasted so much money on lawyers or spent so much time in Alcatraz.
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