This judge's instruction to jurors: Dress up

As do virtually all judges in Massachusetts, Judge Raymond J. Brassard gives newly assembled juries a variety of instructions at the start of trials: Listen carefully to testimony. Ignore news accounts. And do not discuss the case outside the courtroom.

But in more than a decade on the Superior Court bench, Brassard has given thousands of male jurors another decree almost never heard in any other courtroom: Please wear a necktie.

The 59-year-old judge made the request just last week as a Suffolk County jury that included three men began hearing the case of a man accused of shooting and wounding two Boston police officers. As for the 13 female jurors, he urged them to dress appropriately.

Dress codes in society have largely gone the way of fedoras and watch fobs, Brassard acknowledged afterward. But he said he believes that courts, at least, should preserve an atmosphere of dignity, given the high stakes in criminal and civil cases. A snugly knotted necktie is one way to do that, Brassard said.

''I think jury service is a serious occasion," he said during a break in his chambers, where he had removed his robe to reveal a silk maroon tie, a gift from his wife. ''And I think the whole system of law benefits when people walking into a courtroom -- witnesses, spectators, defendants -- look at the jury box and see that it's not just the lawyers who are formally dressed."

Brassard, who first practiced law as a defense lawyer and prosecutor in the Judge Advocate General's Corps in the Navy in the early 1970s, makes no specific recommendation for female jurors, saying he is ill-equipped to do so. But he said his instructions at the start of trials invariably prompt women to arrive neatly attired, sometimes even wearing dresses or suits.

David Gontaruk, a 37-year-old Boston real estate agent and juror in a recent murder trial before Brassard, said he appreciated the judge's concern about formality. But he chose not to wear a tie because, he said, it makes him feel uncomfortable and would probably distract him from testimony.

In addition, he said he believed he made a considerable sacrifice by setting aside his business to serve on a jury for five weeks. ''Quite frankly, I felt, I'm already doing the Commonwealth a favor," Gontaruk said.

Still, at the Suffolk Superior Courthouse, where jurors and spectators often show up in sweatshirts, tank tops, jeans, and sneakers, several regulars praise the judge's sartorial bent.

Marisela Ramirez, a veteran advocate for the Suffolk district attorney's office who accompanies witnesses and relatives of murder victims to trials, said Brassard is right to insist that jurors wear professional attire.

''Being in a tie and shirt changes the whole jury's mindset," she said. ''These are serious cases. It requires people to be serious and to look it."

Not everyone cottons to Brassard's instructions, though. Jon C. Taylor, a veteran Dorchester criminal defense lawyer who cuts a distinctive figure with his long mane of white hair and trademark bow tie, said he is far more concerned about jurors paying attention to testimony than about them dressing casually.

''I remember when we were a free country," he said. Besides, he added, ''There might be people on the jury who don't know how to do a Windsor knot or a four-in-hand."

Brassard, who graduated from Boston College and its law school, said that since he began recommending ties for men and appropriate clothes for women, most jurors have complied, at least until they begin deliberating. Long days in stuffy jury rooms can make anyone switch to an open-collared sport shirt.

The day after Brassard made the request of the three male jurors last week, two showed up to court wearing a tie. (One ended up being excused for health reasons.) The third wore a casual shirt.

Brassard -- a trim, formal man who runs three miles every day -- said he recognizes that some male jurors may not own ties. But he has never received a complaint, he said, and he only gives the instruction once. ''I don't pester them about it," he said.

He took his cue, he said, from one of his predecessors, Superior Court Judge Robert Barton.

Barton, a Marine veteran known as ''Old School" Barton, started asking jurors to dress appropriately -- that meant jackets and ties for men -- when he joined the bench in 1978 and kept doing so until he retired in 2000.

In the 1990s, when office attire got so casual that some younger male jurors did not even own neckties, Barton would recommend that they borrow one from their father or an older brother. Some jurors might have chafed, he said, but they complied because of peer pressure on the jury.

''I was very proud of the fact that till the day I stepped off the bench, my jurors were the best attired in the Commonwealth," he said.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com