At the Bar;Defense lawyer turns the tables on the prosecutors but pays a price.

It was the moment every criminal defense lawyer dreads: The witness was about to identify the person sitting in the defendant's chair as the perpetrator -- and the case's sole witness was a police officer.

In DuPage County Circuit Court, Ronald H. LaMorte, a police officer in Wood Dale, Ill., had just described his investigation at the scene of a traffic accident. He told how the cars had been positioned and how the defendant could not produce his driver's license, which had been revoked.

That man, the one at counsel's table, the tall, thin fellow with dark blond hair, wearing glasses and a striped shirt, was the defendant, Christopher Simac, the officer said.

The aforementioned fellow took the stand. His name: David P. Armanentos. Had he been driving a motor vehicle in the vicinity of the accident that day? asked the defense lawyer.

No, said Mr. Armanentos, a temporary clerk in the lawyer's firm.

Meanwhile, in the back of the courtroom watching Mr. Armanentos blow the state's case to smithereens, sat Christopher Simac, a tall, thin fellow with dark blond hair, wearing glasses and a striped shirt. Indeed when the prosecutor asked the officer to look around the courtroom again, he picked out Mr. Armanentos.

The good news for the defense was that Associate Judge Donald J. Hennessy gave a directed verdict of not guilty. The bad news was that last month, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the judge's other finding: that the defense lawyer, David Sotomayor, should be fined and held in criminal contempt for "conduct calculated to embarrass, hinder or obstruct a court in its administration of justice or to derogate from its authority or dignity."

Mr. Sotomayor's offense, said the court, was that he had not let the judge in on the switch beforehand.

To defense lawyers, Mr. Sotomayor, 36, who has a local reputation for being aggressive and innovative, has acquired something of a martyr's afterglow. In their view, he took a courtroom moment traditionally produced and directed by the prosecution and upstaged it, exonerating his client. "We ought to give the guy a medal," said Gerald H. Goldstein of San Antonio, the incoming president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which filed a brief on Mr. Sotomayor's behalf.

His support was not restricted to colleagues. While the appellate court voted against him 2 to 1, it reduced his fine to $100 from $500. The Illinois Supreme Court, which upheld the reduced fine, decided against him in a 4-to-3 decision.

The dissent said Mr. Sotomayor's intent was only to show the unreliability of the prosecution's witness. Moreover, seating a client at counsel's table is customary but not required. Nor is a lawyer obliged, the dissent tartly observed, to help a witness make an identification.

But Barbara A. Preiner, the supervisor of appeals for the DuPage County State's Attorney, insisted: "He could have handled it in other ways than pulling a fast one." Mr. Sotomayor, she suggested, could have alerted the judge and prosecutor that he was going to test the officer's recall. Then he could have placed the client and look-alike in the gallery, leaving the seat next to him vacant.

As Mr. Sotomayor tells it, the switch was not the result of a careful plot, but an inspiration over lunch just before the misdemeanor bench trial was to begin. The prosecution, he said, had postponed the trial on many occasions because the complaining witness had never shown up. Faced with a speedy trial clock that was rapidly ticking down, it was going to proceed on the officer's testimony.

Given that Mr. Sotomayor's ploy worked -- well, for the client, at least -- what is surprising is that lawyers do not try this kind of thing more often. "The case points out how arguably meaningless in-court I.D.'s are," said Bruce A. Green, who teaches ethics at Fordham Law School.

But most lawyers leave trick-or-treat stunts for Halloween. The Illinois Supreme Court had scant precedent to turn to. The leading case is a 1981 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in which a Washington State lawyer represented a client charged with illegal salmon fishing. Next to the lawyer at counsel table sat a man wearing jeans, heavy shoes, a plaid shirt and a jacket-vest. The defendant, wearing a business suit and large glasses, sat in the press section.

Throughout the trial the lawyer, unlike Mr. Sotomayor, acted as if the man in outdoor-wear was his client, conferring with him and exchanging notes on a yellow legal pad. As expected, two Government witnesses misidentified him as the defendant.

The Federal judge found the lawyer in criminal contempt. The Ninth Circuit saluted the lawyer, then unanimously upheld the contempt.