BELL, GRIFFIN BOYETTE

BELL, GRIFFIN BOYETTE

Griffin Boyette Bell served as U.S. attorney general from 1977 to 1979 under President JIMMY CARTER and before that from 1961 to 1976 as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He is also nationally recognized for his skills as a corporate lawyer.

Bell was born October 31, 1918, in Americus, Georgia, only 12 miles from Plains, Georgia, the boyhood home of Carter. (In fact, Carter and Bell knew each other as children.) Bell
served in the U.S. Army during WORLD WAR II.
After the war, he studied at Mercer University Law School, graduating cum laude in 1948. He gained admission to the Georgia bar in 1947. Bell practiced law in Savannah, Georgia, and Rome, Georgia, from 1947 to 1953, after which he moved to Atlanta to work in the prestigious firm of King and Spalding, where he eventually earned the position of managing partner. Bell also became involved in politics, serving from 1959 to 1961 as chief of staff to Governor S. Ernest Vandiver, of Georgia.

SCHOOL DESEGREGATION was a heated issue
at the time. Governor Vandiver vigorously
opposed desegregation, inventing the slogan
“No, Not One” to symbolize his goal of keeping
Georgia’s schools completely segregated. Bell
acted as a moderating influence on Vandiver,
working behind the scenes to ease tensions with
African American leaders. Eventually, Vandiver
and the Georgia legislature agreed to conditional
desegregation.
Bell served as cochairman of the Georgia
election campaign in 1960 for JOHN F. KENNEDY.
His success at that task won him an appointment
as judge to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Fifth Circuit in 1961, a position he held
through 1976. During his 15 years on the bench,
he took part in over 3,000 cases, 141 of them
involving school desegregation.
Observers have categorized Bell’s judicial
decisions as moderate to conservative.He generally
supported CIVIL RIGHTS advocates in
employment and VOTING RIGHTS cases, but he
opposed busing as a means to achieve school
desegregation. At times, his decisions could have
been described as liberal, as when he supported
attempts to place more African Americans on
juries and approved AFFIRMATIVE ACTION hiring
for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. His most
influential work was the initiation of a reform
scheme that improved the efficiency of the court
system.
Bell also served as cochairman of the Atlanta
Commission on Crime and Delinquency from
1965 to 1966.He resigned from the appeals court
in 1976, resumed private practice, and served as
legal adviser to Carter during Carter’s presidential
campaign that year. Once elected as president,
Carter named Bell attorney general, a move
that disappointed those who had hoped Carter
would appoint an African American or a woman
to the office. Bell’s nomination ran into trouble
when it was revealed that he belonged to three
clubs that were in effect racially segregated. Bell
agreed to quit the clubs and was nominated to
the post of attorney general on January 25, 1977.
Upon taking office, Bell defused some of the
opposition to his appointment by naming
African Americans to the posts of SOLICITOR GENERAL and assistant attorney general. He also
appointed women to other key positions in the
department and to federal judgeships. Later, Bell
proudly pointed out that 41 women were
appointed and confirmed to the federal bench
during the Carter administration, producing an
eightfold increase in the number of federal
judgeships occupied by women. As attorney
general, Bell again championed court reform
and also pushed for greater FEDERAL BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATION involvement in pursuing whitecollar,
narcotics, and antitrust violations.
Bell resigned as attorney general in 1979 and
resumed his work in private practice as senior
partner at King and Spalding. Bell has been
called on frequently by Fortune 500 corporations
for advice on difficult legal issues. He led
independent investigations of Exxon Corporation’s
actions following a 1989 oil spill in Prince
William Sound, off the coast of Alaska, and, in
1992, Dow Corning Corporation’s handling of
lawsuits resulting from its silicone breast
implants. In the early 2000s Bell continued to
focus on giving advice and counsel on matters
relating to corporate crime. His organization of
the firm’s Special Matters Group assembled
lawyers with a wide variety of experience in representing
corporations charged with civil or corporate
wrongdoing. He served as an arbitrator
on two international ARBITRATION panels as
well as an advisor on several major corporate litigation
cases.
Bell served as cochairman of the National
Task Force on Violent Crime in 1981 and
cochairman of the Committee on Federal Ethics
in 1989. He has also served as president of the
American College of Trial Lawyers. Bell received
an honorary doctor of laws degree from Mercer
University in 1967 and the ORDER OF THE COIF
from Vanderbilt Law School. In 1982, he published
Taking Care of the Law, which relates his
experiences as attorney general and sets forth his
recommendations for legal reform and the
reduction of government bureaucracy.
After the SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS of 2001,
Bell wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal
addressing the issue of the curtailment of civil
liberties. In November 2001 he testified on the same issue before the SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE.
In February 2003, the Washington Post
reported that the Pentagon, in response to complaints
from some lawmakers and civil liberties
groups, planned to create an oversight board
and outside advisory committee to track the
activity of a global data-surveillance research
program known as the Total Information
Awareness Project. Griffin Bell was named to the
advisory committee that would advise the secretary
of defense on the social and legal implications
of the new surveillance technology.
FURTHER READINGS
Baker, Nancy V. 1992. Conflicting Loyalties: Law and Politics
in the Attorney General’s Office, 1789–1990. Lawrence:
Univ. Press of Kansas.
Bell, Griffin B. 1978. “The Attorney General: The Federal
Government’s Chief Lawyer and Chief Litigator, or One
Among Many?” Fordham Law Review 46 (May).
Bell, Griffin B., with Ronald J. Ostrow. 1982. Taking Care of
the Law. New York: Morrow. Reprint 1986.Macon, Ga.:
Mercer Univ. Press.
Blum, Andrew. 1993. “In Bell Probe for Dow, Bid Made for
Implant Papers.” National Law Journal (February 1).
—. 1989. “Valdez Captain Takes Offensive.” National
Law Journal (October 23).
Dillard, Stephen Louis A. 2003. “Griffin Bell” in Great American
Judges: An Encyclopedia. Edited by John R. Vile.
Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio. Reprinted online at
(accessed
August 27, 2003).
Justice Department. 1991. 200th Anniversary of the Office of
the Attorney General, 1789–1989. Washington, D.C.:
Department of Justice, Office of Attorney General and
Justice Management Division.
Murphy, Reg. 1999. Uncommon Sense: The Achievement of
Griffin Bell. Atlanta, Ga.: Longstreet.