Judge faces discipline for wearing hat with Palestine flag to conference • New Jersey Monitor

An East Orange municipal judge faces disciplinary proceedings after wearing a baseball cap embroidered with the Palestinian flag to a judicial training conference in June, a state ethics panel said in a complaint Wednesday.

Judge Steven Brister wore the cap and a black and white keffiyeh, a type of scarf common to the Middle East, and declined to remove them after Essex County courts’ presiding municipal judge informed him the attire had caused some offense, according to the complaint from the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct.

The committee said that by wearing the hat and keffiyeh, Brister was engaging in political speech barred by state ethics rules.

“Wearing a hat with the flag of Palestine, and the word ‘Palestine,’ to this Conference, particularly when combined with the black and white checkered keffiyeh, may reasonably have been interpreted by those in attendance and the broader public, as a political statement in support of Palestine in the ongoing conflict in the region at the time,” the complaint reads.

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Brister declined to remove the cap when asked, saying he would do so only if an announcement asked all attendees to remove their headgear, the complaint says.

On a phone call the same day, Brister told the presiding judge he had worn the hat because it was it was raining and the cap was the first one on hand.

In October, he told committee staff he had chosen the hat because it matched his outfit and did not view it or the keffiyeh as a political statement. He told investigators he wore the scarf for religious reasons.

The complaint charges Brister violated judicial rules that bar political speech and require jurists to observe high standards of conduct and avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Brister was suspended for 30 days in 2021 for making misogynistic comments to a man facing domestic violence charges.

He told investigators the comments in question were “well-meaning but undeniably misguided” and were rooted in his religious beliefs in the biblical story that Eve was created from Adam’s rib.