{{Short description|American judge (born 1943)}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = Honorable | name = Robert M. Bell | honorific_suffix = | image = Robert M. Bell (2008).jpg | caption = | order = | office = 23rd Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals | term_start = 1996 | term_end = July 6, 2013 | nominator = Parris Glendening | predecessor = Robert C. Murphy | successor = Mary Ellen Barbera | order2 = | office2 = Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals | term_start2 = 1991 | term_end2 = July 6, 2013 | appointer2 = William Donald Schaefer | order3 = | office3 = Judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals | term_start3 = 1984 | term_end3 = 1991 | appointer3 = Harry R. Hughes | order4 = | office4 = Associate Judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City | term_start4 = 1980 | term_end4 = 1984 | appointer4 = Harry R. Hughes | order5 = | office5 = Associate Judge of the Maryland District Court for District 1, Baltimore City | term_start5 = 1975 | term_end5 = 1980 | appointer5 = Marvin Mandel | birth_name = Robert Mack Bell | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1943|7|6|mf=y}} | birth_place = Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | party = | spouse = | relations = | children = | alma_mater = Morgan State College (AB)<br>Harvard Law School (JD) | occupation = | profession = | cabinet = | predecessor2 = Harry A. Cole | successor2 = Shirley M. Watts | successor3 = Diana Gribbon Motz }}
'''Robert Mack Bell''' (born July 6, 1943) is an American lawyer and jurist from Baltimore, Maryland. From 1996 to 2013, he served as Chief Judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals, now known as the Supreme Court of Maryland, the state's highest appellate court. He was the first African American to hold the position.
At 16 years old, Bell was the lead plaintiff in ''Bell v. Maryland'', a case that ultimately helped push the U.S. toward desegregation.<ref name="baltimoresun1">{{cite web |url=http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-04-13/news/bs-md-judge-bell-retires-20130413_1_bell-maryland-court-juanita-jackson-mitchell |title=Robert M. Bell, chief judge of Maryland Court of Appeals, retiring |publisher=The Baltimore Sun |date=April 13, 2013 |access-date=July 20, 2013 |archive-date=July 22, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722193626/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-04-13/news/bs-md-judge-bell-retires-20130413_1_bell-maryland-court-juanita-jackson-mitchell |url-status=dead }}</ref> Bell served as a judge at every level of the Maryland court system; and on July 6, 2013, reached the state's mandatory retirement age of 70 years for appellate and circuit court judges.
==Background==
Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Bell's mother, a sharecropper, moved him and his two brothers to East Baltimore when he was one and a half years old.<ref name="state1">{{cite web |url=http://www.courts.state.md.us/publications/jmonline/2011fall/interviewcjb.html |title=Justice Matters |publisher=courts.state.md.us |accessdate=July 20, 2013 |archive-date=December 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111201163539/http://www.courts.state.md.us/publications/jmonline/2011fall/interviewcjb.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He attended Dunbar High School with classmate and friend Reginald F. Lewis.<ref name="baltimoresun1"/> As a 16-year-old, he and a group of students participated in a sit-in to protest racial segregation at a local restaurant.<ref name="baltimoresun1"/> On June 17, 1960, the group of 12 students entered Hooper's Restaurant, formerly located at Charles and Fayette Streets in downtown Baltimore, where they were refused service and asked to leave. The students, including Bell, refused.<ref name="maryland1">{{cite web |url=http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc5600/sc5604/html/june.html |title=Students conduct sit-in at local restaurant; June 1960 |publisher=msa.maryland.gov |accessdate=July 20, 2013 |archive-date=May 13, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150513160117/http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc5600/sc5604/html/june.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He and the other students were arrested and convicted in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City for criminal trespassing, and fined $10.<ref name="maryland1"/> The NAACP hired a team of lawyers, including Thurgood Marshall and Juanita Jackson Mitchell, to represent the students and appeal the conviction to the Maryland Court of Appeals.<ref name="maryland1"/> The appellants argued that the use of the state's trespassing laws to support segregation of public accommodations violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.<ref name="teachingamericanhistorymd1">{{cite web |url=http://teachingamericanhistorymd.net/000001/000000/000032/html/t32.html |title=Teaching American History in Maryland |publisher=teachingamericanhistorymd.net |accessdate=July 20, 2013 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081020064636/http://teachingamericanhistorymd.net/000001/000000/000032/html/t32.html |archivedate=October 20, 2008 }}</ref> In 1962, the Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the circuit court.<ref name="teachingamericanhistorymd1"/>
The case was then appealed to the U.S Supreme Court, where Bell was represented by Constance Baker Motley and Jack Greenberg. In ''Bell v. Maryland'' (1964), the Supreme Court, noting that in the period since the students' conviction the Maryland General Assembly passed public accommodation laws and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,<ref name="webster">{{cite journal|last=Webster|first=McKenzie|url=https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=17+J.+L.+%26+Politics+373&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=81ba325ca87db02324b9b8823be6cf4c|title=The Warren Court's Struggle With the Sit-In Cases and the Constitutionality of Segregation in Places of Public Accommodations|journal=Journal of Law and Politics|volume=17|issue=Spring 2001|pages=373–407|accessdate=July 19, 2013|url-access=subscription|archive-date=March 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304000441/https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=17+J.+L.+%26+Politics+373&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=81ba325ca87db02324b9b8823be6cf4c|url-status=live}}</ref> refused to rule whether the state's trespassing laws could be used to exclude blacks from public accommodations. The Court vacated the decision and remanded the case to allow the state court to rule whether the conviction should be reversed due to the change in state law.<ref name="teachingamericanhistorymd1"/><ref name="state1"/> On April 9, 1965, Bell's conviction was reversed by the state Court of Appeals and all of the students were cleared of all charges.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://teachingamericanhistorymd.net/000001/000000/000032/html/t32.html|title=Desegregation of Maryland's Restaurants: ''Robert Mack Bell v. Maryland''|publisher=Maryland State Archives|accessdate=May 14, 2008|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081020064636/http://teachingamericanhistorymd.net/000001/000000/000032/html/t32.html|archivedate=October 20, 2008}}</ref> The decision of the Supreme Court came just two days after the Senate ended a filibuster and passed the Civil Rights Act. It has been suggested that the Supreme Court refrained from reaching the merits of the case in consideration of the pending civil rights legislation, as had it done so, it would have eliminated the basis for passing the Act.<ref name="webster"/>
Bell later attended and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in history from Morgan State University in Baltimore in 1966 and while there became a brother in Alpha Phi Omega. He then was admitted to Harvard Law School where he earned his Juris Doctor in 1969. That same year he was admitted to the bar and began his legal practice in Baltimore.<ref name="state1"/>
==Judicial career==
In 1975, Bell was appointed to the District Court of Maryland, District 1, in Baltimore City and served there until 1980. He was an Associate Judge, Baltimore City Circuit Court, 8th Judicial Circuit, from 1980 to 1984 when he was appointed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Seven years later he was appointed to the state's highest court and became the chief judge in 1996. He was a member, Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1977 to 1982; Commission to Revise the Annotated Code of Maryland, 1980–82; and the Board of Directors, Judicial Institute of Maryland, 1982–84. In August 2006, Bell was named Chair of the National Center for State Courts’ Board of Directors. At the same time, Judge Bell also was named president of the Conference of Chief Justices.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ncsconline.org/D_Comm/PressRelease/2006/ChiefJudgeBell.html|title=Chief of Maryland Courts named to leadership of national|publisher=National Center for State Courts|accessdate=May 4, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828204303/http://www.ncsconline.org/D_Comm/PressRelease/2006/ChiefJudgeBell.html|archive-date=2008-08-28|url-status=dead}}</ref>
In April 2013, Bell announced that he would be retiring on July 6, 2013.<ref>{{cite web |author=Theresa Thomas |url=http://www.courts.state.md.us/media/news/2013/pr20130417.html |title=Chief Judge Robert M. Bell Retirement: Maryland Judiciary Press Release |publisher=courts.state.md.us |date=April 17, 2013 |accessdate=July 20, 2013 |archive-date=October 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004184155/http://www.courts.state.md.us/media/news/2013/pr20130417.html |url-status=live }}</ref> After reaching Maryland's mandatory retirement age for state judges, 70, Bell retired from his position as Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals on July 6, 2013.<ref name="baltimoresun1"/>
==Awards==
Bell has also been the recipient of several awards: *American Bar Association D'Alemberte-Raven Award for Outstanding Leadership in Alternative Dispute Resolution *Legal Excellence Award for Advancement of Public Service Responsibility from the Maryland Bar Foundation *Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence Special Recognition Award *Maryland Leadership in Law Award *Maryland Legal Services Corporation Medal for Access to Justice
==See also== *List of African-American jurists *List of first minority male lawyers and judges in Maryland
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/29ap/former/html/msa11654.html Bell's profile at the Maryland State Archives]
{{s-start}} {{s-legal}} {{succession box | before = Robert C. Murphy |title=Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals | years = 1996–2013 | after = Mary Ellen Barbera}} {{end}} {{CJ-MCoA}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Robert M.}} Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century Maryland state court judges Category:21st-century American state court judges Category:African-American judges Category:21st-century African-American lawyers Category:21st-century American lawyers Category:Chief justices of the Supreme Court of Maryland Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:Maryland lawyers Category:Morgan State University alumni Category:People from Rocky Mount, North Carolina Category:20th-century African-American lawyers Category:20th-century American lawyers