POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Christopher Coates to Testify on New Black Panthers Dismissal

DoJ lawyer breaks ranks, decides to honor Commission on Civil Rights subpoena:

The Justice Department section chief who recommended going forward on a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party, and then was removed from his post and transferred to South Carolina, will testify on the case Friday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Commission officials confirmed Wednesday that Christopher Coates, who signed off on the federal-court complaint saying three party members had disrupted a Philadelphia polling place in the 2008 elections, had agreed in a hand-delivered letter to testify when the panel reconvenes its hearing on the case.

In the letter, Mr. Coates said he wanted to attend the meeting "to present testimony to comply with the outstanding subpoena served on me as part of your statutory investigation."

In December, the Justice Department had told the attorneys who filed the complaint not to cooperate in the commission's investigation. Joseph H. Hunt, director of the Justice Department's Federal Programs Branch, had ordered the lawyers' silence, saying there were "well-established" and "lawful" department guidelines prohibiting them from cooperating with the commission.

Mr. Hunt said at the time that the Civil Rights Commission "possesses no authority to initiate criminal prosecution of anyone" and could only make referrals to the Justice Department recommending that a criminal case be opened. He said the commission did not have the authority to enforce subpoenas.

The commission had subpoenaed Mr. Coates and J. Christian Adams, the lead attorney in the New Black Panther Party case, in December, seeking their testimony and documents to explain why the complaint was dismissed just as a federal judge was about to punish the party members, who never responded to the charges.

An interesting piece of information about the Commission from its Wikipedia entry:

Their first project was to look for evidence of racial discrimination in voting rights in Montgomery. But they immediately ran into resistance. Circuit Judge George C. Wallace, Jr., who went on to greater notoriety as governor, ordered that voter registration records be impounded. "They are not going to get the records," he declared. "And if any agent of the Civil Rights Commission comes down to get them, they will be locked up. ... I repeat, I will jail any Civil Rights Commission agent who attempts to get the records." The hearing nevertheless went forward with no shortage of evidence. Witness after witness testified to inappropriate interference with his or her right to vote. The Commissioners spent the night at Maxwell Air Base, because the city’s hotels were all segregated.

My, how times change.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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