Chris Brown -- Don't Make Me Go To D.C.!

2:44 PM PT -- Good news for CB ... the judge just approved Brown's request ... he won't have to go to D.C.

Chris Brown just asked the judge in his assault case in Washington D.C. to give him a pass and NOT make him appear Monday in court so he can stay in inpatient anger management rehab.

Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, just filed legal docs -- obtained by TMZ -- asking the judge for the break. D.C. criminal courts require a defendant's presence even in misdemeanor cases.

Brown is kind of between a rock and a hard place, because a California judge has ordered him to stay put in rehab for 90 days.

Geragos says in the docs he reached out to the prosecutors to see if they were on board with Brown skipping the hearing, but he says he was told, no dice.

So Geragos has made his case.