The appellant Burg, hereinafter called the defendant, was convicted in a jury trial in the District Court, of bank robbery, a violation of Title 18, United States Code, § 2113 (a). He has appealed. There is no problem concerning the jurisdiction of the District Court or of this court.

The appellant states, as his grounds for appeal:

The question raised by the defendant under paragraph A above concerns the admissibility against a defendant who is a witness in his own defense, of evidence that he has had one or more prior convictions of felonies. Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides, so far as here pertinent:

The weight of authority in the federal courts is that evidence of conviction of a felony is admissible to impeach the credibility of a witness. In the last few years that consistent line of precedents has been interrupted by decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In Luck v. United *236 States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 151 , 348 F.2d 763, 768-769 (1965), that court discussed at length the problem which had been a subject of discussion by legal writers and in State legislatures, the problem of prejudice resulting from such evidence, particularly when the witness is the defendant in a criminal case. The court in Luck stresses the dilemma which confronts a defendant who desires to take the stand in his defense, but who would if his prior conviction could be used to impeach his credibility, assume the risk that the jury might be affected, to his prejudice, by the knowledge of his prior crime. In Luck, the court held that the trial judge should, when the question is raised by the defendant whether, if he takes the witness stand, his prior conviction may be put in evidence to impeach his credibility, weigh the value of the evidence of prior conviction as an assistance to the jury in deciding whether the defendant’s testimony should be believed, against the handicap to the jury of not hearing the defendant’s testimony, because he will not take the stand and thereby expose himself to the prejudice in the minds of the jury resulting from their learning that he is a prior-convicted criminal. The Luck case does* not hold that in every case the trial court should rule that the defendant could take the stand and his prior conviction could not be offered against him. It holds that the trial judge should consider the circumstances of the specific, case before the court. The court which'decided the Luck case, said, in Brown v. United States, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 220 , 370 F.2d 242 (1966):

There is, of course, much food for thought in the opinions of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the Luck and Brown cases, supra. The defendant urges that we apply the doctrine of those cases to his instant case. For us to do what the defendant urges would be a sharp departure from the regular course of decisions in the federal courts. The defendant does not cite any federal case, other than the recent cases in the District of Columbia, holding that *237 prior conviction of a felony is not, as a matter of course, admissible in evidence to impeach the credibility of a witness. Indeed, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a decision rendered more recently than Luck and Brown decisions seems to have receded somewhat from the advanced position taken in those earlier decisions. In Gordon v. United States, 383 F.2d 936, 939 , 127 U.S.App.D.C. 343 (1967) the Court said:

This “far outweigh” language in Gordon is a more emphatic statement of what was recognized in Luck, i. e., that prior conviction is in fact relevant and probative on the question of credibility. It would seem, then, that even in the District of Columbia, the defendant would have a heavy burden indeed when, as in the instant case, his prior conviction was for theft, to persuade the trial court that it was “far” more important, in the fair administration of justice, to keep the jury in the dark as to whether the defendant was a credible witness than to require the defendant to elect at his risk whether or not to take the witness stand in his defense.

The Luck doctrine places on the trial judge a delicate and difficult responsibility for weighing things which are, in fact, not susceptible of being weighed. The Luck rule may thus tend to put the trial judge in the position of having to make a decision which is, in reality, an arbitrary one for which he can give no satisfactory reason. The federal cases, except for the District of Columbia cases all interpret the common law as making evidence of the prior conviction of a witness of felony admissible to impeach him. The cases are conveniently collected in Modern Federal Practice Digest, Witnesses, Key No. 337(5) and 337(6). It may be worthy of note that the Pocket Part of the Digest shows decisions in five circuits, rendered since the decision in the Luck case, all of which have adhered to the orthodox rule. Helberg v. United States, 365 F.2d 314 , CA 9, 1966, is one of those cases. And on November 26, 1968, this court in Dipple v. United States, 403 F.2d 965 , again adhered to the traditional rule of the federal courts.

We hold that the evidence of the defendant’s prior conviction was admissible.

The defendant asserts error in the trial court’s not having, of its own motion, prevented Government counsel from commenting, in his closing argument, on the defendant’s prior conviction. Defendant’s counsel, in his argument to the jury, accused Government counsel of having asked the defendant, when cross-examining him, whether he had committed a felony to which the defendant answered “yes”. Defendant’s counsel said, in his argument, “I submit that this was only done to prejudice the jury and not to impeach the defendant.” Government counsel, in his closing argument, replied to this accusation by a rather long discussion seeking to explain to the jury why his asking the defendant the question about a prior felony was proper, and was not done to create prejudice against the defendant.

There is no merit in the defendant’s claim of improper conduct by the prosecution.

The judgment is affirmed.

. D.C.Code § 305 provides that prior conviction. does not make one incompetent to testify “but such fact may be given in evidence to affect his [credibility] as a witness.” [Footnote not in original]