The DUI Defendant was Taiwanese. The defense attorney was Korean. The police officer witness was some mix of European strains.

Defense counsel was hammering away at the cop for not offering the defendant an interpreter at the time of the arrest, when the defendant never showed any inability to converse in English.

"How could you NOT know that he needed an interpreter? What did he look like to you?" demanded the exasperated lawyer?

"He looked like a drunk Oriental to me," was the officer's answer.

The attorney drew back, as if in horror, and dramatically turned to me on the bench, and demanded that I strike the witness' answer and instruct the officer not to use "racist" terms in the courtroom. I think this was done/said mostly for the effect which it might have had on the jurors.

While I have an ethical duty not to permit the use of racist terms in the courtroom, I wouldn't go so far as to say that "Oriental" is one of them. Am I wrong?