Call Me Mister

A twice-convicted thief named Richard Armstead took the stand before U.S. District Judge Alexander Holtzoff in Washington, D.C., to deny the latest robbery charge against him. Bring out his criminal record, snapped the judge. "Mr. Armstead," the prosecutor dutifully began. But Judge Holtzoff, who is 78 and has been on the bench 20 years, interrupted in a manner unexpected in the scrupulously courteous federal courts. "Don't address defendants as Mister," he said. "Witnesses and counsel should be addressed as Mr. or Mrs. or Miss, as the case may be, but not the defendant."

The evidence was so solid that Armstead's court-appointed lawyer later asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to dismiss the appeal that he had filed for his client. The court complied, but in the process it went out of its way to rap Judge Holtzoff for his "inexplicable" rudeness to Mr. Armstead.

"When a defendant takes the stand he is a witness," said the court. "He is entitled to the same courtesies and consideration as all the others involved in the proceedings. The presumption of innocence, apart from other factors, requires no less than that nothing be permitted to trench on that presumption."

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