opinion: UNITED STATES of America v. Wendell McINTOSH, Appellant.
  No. 22538.
  United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
  Argued Dec. 11, 1969.
  Decided March 11, 1970.
  Mr. Worth Rowley, Washington, D. C. (appointed by this court), for appellant.
  Mr. Edwin K. Hall, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Thomas A. Flannery, U. S. Atty., John A. Terry and Daniel Harris, Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee. Mr. David G. Bress, U. S. Atty., at the time the record was filed, also entered an appearance for appellee.
  Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and TAMM and MacKINNON, Circuit Judges.
  MacKINNON, Circuit Judge:
  Appellant was convicted of mail theft of a cardboard box at the Union Station. Evidence at his trial showed that Post Office personnel saw him leaving a mail area near the passenger gates at Union Station carrying a mailed cardboard box. When a postal supervisor asked him about the box he was carrying, appellant said that it was his, but later when it became apparent from examination that it was not, the appellant claimed that he had had a parcel of the same size and shape but that he must have picked up the wrong parcel. At trial appellant also claimed that he had a similar cardboard box that he had set down at the Union Station; but such box was never produced nor was there any corroborative evidence that such box ever existed. Appellant’s attempted explanation as to his reason for being at the station revolved around the claim that he was there to meet friends he expected to arrive on an incoming train. These “friends” were never otherwise identified or produced.
  Before trial there was a motion to suppress hearing after which the trial judge conducted a Luck type hearing at which it was brought out that appellant had been convicted of larceny after trust in 1955 and three violations of the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1961. Because of the natural objections to these convictions (remoteness and propensity to crime), the trial judge then considered conducting a hearing to determine whether the appellant had led a legally blameless life since 1955 but appellant’s' counsel refused this offer saying, “I can’t say that.” The judge then said:
  “I don’t believe in weighing down the record with evidence of prior criminal convictions because that too much leads a jury to the possible conclusion that the man has a propensity for crime rather than simply having the opportunity of considering it in connection with their evaluation of his credibility. I will permit you to introduce or to question him about one of these convictions. Now, which one would you prefer to use, the recent one in the narcotics area? Or larceny after trust?”
  The prosecution chose and used the narcotics conviction because it was the most recent conviction.
  At trial there was no objection to use of the prior conviction but now on appeal appellant argues that a Harrison Narcotics Act conviction is a hideous crime which does not bear directly on credibility and, therefore, it was reversible error for the court to allow the Government to use it for impeachment purposes in a case where he is the only defense witness. We disagree.
  This court has held that narcotics convictions do bear weight on the issue of credibility. Consequently, in a Luck situation, if the judge determines that one of a number of a defendant’s prior convictions is to be introduced for impeachment purposes, it is not error per se to allow impeachment by a narcotics conviction pursuant to D.C.Code § 14-305 (1967). We disagree with the appellant’s contention that a narcotics conviction is such a hideous crime that its introduction at trial automatically becomes so prejudicial that a defendant is thereby denied his right to a fair trial. Indeed, one might argue that a narcotics conviction is not near so damaging in a mail theft trial as a larceny after trust conviction would be. This may very well have been the reason the defense did not object at trial. In any event it would not be in the interest of justice to allow one with prior convictions to assume the role of pure integrity on the stand simply because he is his only witness or because his prior crimes were serious crimes. We should not forget in our reading of Luck that D.C. Code § 14-305 does specifically authorize the use of a prior conviction to affect one's credibility as a witness.
  The trial judge did err when he allowed the prosecution to select the conviction he was going to use. The question of which conviction to allow for impeachment purposes is under Luck, supra, a matter for the trial judge’s discretion and a failure to exercise that discretion constitutes an abuse thereof. A reading of the record as a whole however indicates that the trial judge weighed the relevant factors (i. e., remoteness, relative bearing on credibility, propensity to crime, etc.) and decided that the two forms of convictions weighed equally. Nevertheless, it was error for the trial judge not to make the decision himself but we do not find that this error constitutes reversible error in this instance. “Any error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a). In this case, the use of a more recent narcotics conviction, as opposed to the more remote larceny after trust conviction that carried the inference of propensity to commit the charged crime, did not affect any substantial rights of the appellant.
  The appellant also argues that the prosecutor, in his closing statement to the jury, and the trial judge, in his instructions to the jury, made reference to the narcotics conviction and that these references inflamed the jury to the prejudice of the defendant. We do not agree. The prosecutor’s interrogation, his argument to the jury and the court’s instruction on the prior conviction were carefully stated so that it was quite clear that the jury was to consider the prior offense solely on the issue of the credibility of the witness.
  Appellant’s brief also takes exception to the prosecutor’s statement that narcotics addicts are notorious liars. Suffice it to say that this statement was not made within the hearing of the jury, and the reference thereto did not reflect the opinion of the prosecutor. He was merely calling the court’s attention out of the hearing of the jury to an argument made in Perry v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 360, 336 F.2d 748 (1964), that dealt with addicts.
  Affirmed.
  . Luck v. United States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 151, 348 F.2d 763 (1965).
  . Brooke v. United States, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 19, 385 F.2d 279 (1967); Evans v. United States, 130 U.S.App.D.C. 114, 397 F.2d 675 (1968). Brooke was a narcotics case and hence the court’s decision permitting use of a prior narcotics conviction for impeachment purposes, over the objection that it would prejudice the defendant by showing a propensity for the particular crime with which he was charged, must be viewed as a strong holding by this court that narcotics convictions go to credibility.
  . “A person is not incompetent to testify, in either civil or criminal proceedings, by reason of his having been convicted of crime. The fact of conviction may be given in evidence to affect his credibility as a witness, either upon the cross-examination of the witness or by evidence aliunde; and the party cross-examining him is not bound by his answers as to such matters. To prove the conviction of crime the certificate, under seal, of the clerk of the court wherein proceedings containing the conviction were had, stating the fact of the. conviction and for what cause, is sufficient.” D.C.Code § 14-305.
  . The prosecutor interrogated the witness as follows:
  “Q Hr. McIntosh, weren’t you convicted on May 25, 1961, of a Harrison Narcotics Act violation?
  “A I have, sir.”
  The prosecutor argued to the jury:
  “I might mention something, I asked him if he had been convicted of a narcotics violation in 1961. There is only one reason I asked him that. It has a bearing on his credibility. It is not to be considered by you as to whether or not he is guilty of this offense. That comes from the evidence the Government permitted — the Court has permitted the Government to introduce. That narcotic conviction only had to do [with] whether or not he is telling the truth, and that is all. I am sure the Court will instruct you that which you are to consider.”
  The court charged the jury as follows:
  “The defendant’s prior criminal record is admitted into evidence solely for your consideration in evaluating the credibility of the defendant as a witness. It is not evidence of the defendant’s guilt of the offense with which he is on trial. You must not draw any inference of guilt against the defendant from his prior conviction. You may consider it only in connection with your evaluation of the credence to be given his testimony in this case.”
instruction: What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
  Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
  In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
  To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
  United States of America,
  Plaintiff, Appellant
  v
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendant, Appellee.
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendants, Cross-appellants
  v
  United States of America.
  Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
  of the Board
  Plaintiff, Appellants,
  v
  United States of America,
  Defendant, Appellee.
  This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
  Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
  If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
  Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.