Immigrant of the Day: Judge David Bernhard

JamG, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Judge David Benhard sits on the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia, a job he’s held since being appointed by the state’s General Assembly in 2017. He’s the state’s first immigrant from Latin American to be appointed a Virginia circuit court judge.

Judge Bernhard was born in El Salvador. He fled that country in the 1970s after, as WaPo reports, his father was nearly kidnapped “because of his diplomatic work as the honorary consul of Israel”. Berhard sought and obtained asylum in the United States, representing himself while pursuing higher education.

As recently reported by the NY Times, Berhard has made waves in his judicial role. Since joining the bench, he has disallowed the display of portraits  in his courtroom. During the pandemic, he’s been presiding over cases in a larger courtroom and recently ordered the portraits in that courtroom removed as well.

Why? Well the portraits depict prior judges, all of whom are white.

As Berhard wrote in a recent opinion: “the Court is concerned the portraits may serve as unintended by implicit symbols that suggest the courtroom may be a place historically administered by whites for whites, and that others are thus of lesser standing in the dispensing of justice.”

-KitJ