[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 3 (Thursday, January 8, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S190-S194]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GRIFFIN BELL
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to a long-time,
good friend and a great Georgian, Griffin Bell, who passed away on
Monday of this week. Judge Griffin Bell was a native of America's
Georgia. He was a distinguished lawyer in our State since 1947, when he
passed the Georgia bar after completing just four quarters of study in
his beloved Mercer Law School in Macon, GA. Upon graduation the
following year, he entered private practice in Savannah. Appointed by
President John Kennedy to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Attorney
General of the United States under President Jimmy Carter, and as an
attorney for President George H.W. Bush, Judge Bell has left an
extraordinary legacy of courage, integrity, wisdom, and, yes, humor to
our Nation and to my State.
In one of the press reports this week, upon Judge Bell's death at the
age of 90, one of his law partners, Richard Schneider at the
distinguished Atlanta firm of King & Spalding, where Judge Bell
practiced before and after his service on the Federal bench and as
Attorney General, said:
No novelist, not even Dickens or John Irving, could have
created a more memorable character than Judge Bell. He took
the role of being a lawyer and transformed it into a legend.
It is remarkable that every man and woman who spent even a
brief period with Judge Bell would cling to him and claim him
as their hero forever. That is how legends are made and
legends last forever. That will be the case with the great
Griffin Bell.
I ask unanimous consent that the article from the Newnan Times-
Herald, in which the Schneider comments appear, be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Newnan Times-Herald]
Heaven Is Greater With the Arrival of Griffin Bell
Georgia is saying goodbye to one of our state's most
distinguished citizens. Griffin B. Bell, lawyer, judge, U.S.
attorney general and confidante to presidents, governors and
many others, died Monday. A public graveside service will be
11 a.m. today in Americus, where he was born. A public
memorial
[[Page S191]]
service will be 11 a.m. Friday at Second Ponce de Leon
Baptist Church in Atlanta.
When we think of Griffin Bell, some of the words that come
to mind are distinguished, integrity, professionalism, charm,
statesman, enduring. In reading some of the news accounts
reacting to his death, we heard words that help define this
Georgia giant.
Said his grandson Griffin Bell III: ``He was ready to go.
We are just blessed to have him so long. He's a great man, a
great grandfather. We're going to miss him--everything was
checked off his list. . . . He was still running the show
until very recently . . . If he had another six months, he'd
still knock off four or five major projects.''
Arlington Christian School
Said law partner Bob Steed: ``If he took a position, he'd
take it strongly and defend it. But if someone improved it,
he was willing to give way. His ego didn't get involved with
his choices. . . . He was sharp to the very end. He told his
son that there must be a committee in heaven in charge of
dying, because it was taking so long.''
Former Mercer University Chancellor R. Kirby Godsey said,
``Griffin Bell was more than an outstanding statesman or a
great American; he stood as a first citizen of the world
whose voice and insights will shape human history for decades
to come.''
``No novelist--not even Dickens or John Irving--could have
created a more memorable character than Judge Bell,'' said
law partner Richard N. Schneider. He took the role of being a
lawyer and transformed it into legend. . . . It is remarkable
that every man and woman who spent even a brief period with
Judge Bell would cling to him and claim him as their hero
forever. That's how legends are made, and legends last
forever--and that will be the case with the great Griffin
Bell.''
And finally, from former prosecutor and now CNN personality
Nancy Grace:
``I have known many, many judges during my legal career.
Judge Bell, without a doubt, was the most honorable of them
all . . . He will be missed sorely, but, as of this moment,
heaven has become even greater.''
Mr. CHAMBLISS. In two short weeks President-elect Obama will be
inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. I am proud of
this moment for him and for our Nation. The new President will have my
prayers and support. I believe it is appropriate to link in some small
way the President-elect's great and historic victory to the courage and
integrity of Judge Bell. In the 1950s and 1960s across the South and
across our Nation as a whole, the country worked to implement the
landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education. While serving as chief of
staff to Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver, Judge Bell provided counsel
to the Sibley Commission. This blue-ribbon panel held hearings
throughout Georgia for the purpose of educating citizens on the
inevitability of public school desegregation. In my view, his efforts
on this commission were an important step down the path Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and others traveled that enabled Atlanta to become the
city and community that it is today, for Georgia to truly become the
empire State of the South, and for our Nation to elect our new
President.
After cochairing President Kennedy's successful Georgia campaign
during his 1960 Presidential election, the President nominated Judge
Bell to a position on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. To quote from
his excellent biography provided by King & Spalding:
Judge Bell was unquestionably one of the court's strongest
civil rights enforcers. He fervently believed in the rule of
law and had little patience for segregationist-minded
government officials seeking to evade or defy court orders to
deny African Americans their civil rights. In United States v
Barnett . . . Judge Bell voted with the majority of the court
in ordering the University of Mississippi to admit James
Meredith as a student and enjoined the governor from
interfering with his admission.
I ask unanimous consent that the firm's biography of Judge Bell be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Bell, Griffin (1918--)
The shadow of Griffin Bell looms large across the landscape
of jurisprudence in the United States. Over the course of his
distinguished fifty-five-year legal career, Bell has compiled
an impressive list of achievements, serving as the managing
partner of Atlanta's premier law firm, the chief of staff to
the governor of Georgia, the U.S. attorney general, legal
adviser to three U.S. presidents, the ``lawyer of last resort
for some of the nation's largest corporations,'' and, for
over fourteen years, an influential federal appellate judge.
Griffin Boyette Bell was born on 31 October 1918 in
Americus, Georgia, to Adlai Cleveland Bell, a cotton farmer,
and Thelma Leola Pilcher Bell. A. C. Bell laid the foundation
for his son's future career in law and politics at an early
age, taking the youngster to numerous campaign rallies and
trials at the local courthouse. Fortunately, the boy's
intellect was more than sufficient to meet his father's
ambitions for him. He was extremely intelligent, graduating
from Americus High School at the age of fifteen. Bell then
attended Georgia Southwestern College and worked as a
Firestone salesman before being drafted by the army in 1941.
After completing Officer Candidate School, he served as a
company commander for more than 500 soldiers during World War
II, eventually attaining the rank of major. Bell credits his
time in the army as the most valuable management experience
he could have received for a career in the law. It was also
during this time period that he met his bride-to-be, Mary
Powell. The Bells were married for almost sixty years before
Mary's passing in the fall of 2000. Their marriage produced
one son, Griffin Jr., and two grandchildren, Griffin III and
Katherine. Judge Bell is now married to Nancy Kinnebrew Bell.
In 1946, after receiving an honorable discharge, Griffin
Bell took advantage of the G.I. Bill by enrolling at Mercer
University's law school in Macon, Georgia. In addition to his
legal studies, Bell clerked for the law firm of Anderson,
Anderson and Walker and served as the first city attorney of
Warner Robbins, Georgia. In 1947, after just four quarters of
study, he passed the Georgia bar on his first attempt. One
year later, he graduated from Mercer with honors. Since that
time, Bell has received the Order of the Coif from Vanderbilt
University's law school and honorary degrees from several
other colleges and universities.
Griffin Bell began his legal career with Lawton and
Cunningham, a historic Savannah law firm that once ``sued the
federal government to recover the value of the cotton that
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman had burned on his `march to the
sea' '' (Murphy 1999, 29). In 1952, he left Savannah to
become a named partner of Matthews, Owens and Maddox, a law
firm located in Rome, Georgia. But he only stayed in Rome for
a ``spell,'' leaving just one year later to join the
prestigious Atlanta law firm of King and Spalding (formerly
known as Spalding, Sibley, Troutman and Kelly). Upon arriving
at King and Spalding, he immediately ``began to lead the firm
toward a more involved role in government affairs'' (Murphy
1999, 40). In 1958, after just five years, he became the
firm's managing partner and one year later was named chief of
staff to S. Ernest Vandiver, the newly elected governor of
Georgia. As chief of staff, Bell was the architect of the
Sibley Commission, a blue ribbon panel designed to conduct
hearings throughout the state ``for the purpose of educating
segregationists on the inevitability of public school
desegregation'' (Patterson 1977). The commission is
universally credited with being the vehicle that saved
Georgia's public school system.
In 1960, Bell was asked to cochair Sen. John F. Kennedy's
presidential campaign in Georgia. He agreed to do so ``before
it was by any means certain a Catholic and a `liberal' on
civil rights could carry that state'' (Patterson 1977). In
one of their first meetings, Kennedy asked Bell whether he
would be embarrassed to campaign on behalf of a Catholic.
Bell replied, ``Not at all. But I am embarrassed for our
country that you would think to ask me that question''
(Murphy 1999, 71). In the end, Kennedy won the election and
carried Georgia by a larger margin than in any other state.
Afterward, Robert Kennedy, the president's brother and new
U.S. attorney general, contacted Bell to inquire as to
whether he was interested in a position or appointment with
the federal government. Bell told him it was his
understanding that two judgeships might open up on the United
States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, at that time
the nation's largest federal appellate court, and that he
would certainly be interested in being considered for one of
them. President Kennedy gladly obliged, nominating the forty-
two-year-old Bell for a judgeship on the Fifth Circuit on 6
October 1961. But instead of waiting for the Senate to
confirm the nomination, Kennedy decided to make Bell a recess
appointment because of ``the circuit's mounting caseload
problems'' (Barrow and Walker 1998, 29). The U.S. Senate
confirmed Bell's nomination by an overwhelming margin the
following spring.
Griffin Bell brought a forceful personality to the Fifth
Circuit. A cross between Mark Twain and John Marshall, Bell
was plain spoken, witty, charming, politically savvy, and
extremely intelligent. He joined the court during one of the
most turbulent times in our nation's history. The country was
in the midst of a social revolution, and the Fifth Circuit--
with jurisdiction over the Deep South states of Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas--was the
primary battleground in the struggle for civil rights. As
tensions rose to a boiling point, the Fifth Circuit was
called upon to dispense justice and maintain societal order.
Never one to sit on the sidelines, Bell wasted little time
entering into the fray and quickly became one of the court's
most respected and influential jurists. As a judge, he
unequivocally enforced the civil rights of black Americans,
served as a bridge between the activist judges of the court
and states' rights advocates, masterfully accommodated the
competing interests of warring civil rights litigants to
achieve commonsense solutions in the most complex of cases,
and was a leader in the fight to preserve neighborhood
schools on a nonracial basis.
Judge Bell was unquestionably one of the court's strongest
civil rights enforcers. He
[[Page S192]]
fervently believed in the rule of law and had little patience
for segregationist-minded government officials seeking to
evade or defy court orders or deny blacks their civil rights.
In United States v. Barnett (1963-1965), Bell voted with the
majority of the court in ordering the University of
Mississippi to admit James Meredith as a student,
enjoining the governor of the state from interfering with
his admission, and holding the governor in civil contempt
for attempting to do so. In Evers v. Jackson Municipal
Separate School District (1964), he reversed a district
court's dismissal of complaints seeking desegregation of
the public school systems of Jackson, Biloxi, and Leake
County, Mississippi, eloquently noting that schools are
not truly desegregated until ``inhibitions, legal and
otherwise, serving to enforce segregation have been
removed . . . [and black children] are `afforded a
reasonable and conscious opportunity to apply for
admission to any schools for which they are eligible
without regard to their race or color, and to have that
choice fairly considered by the enrolling authorities.' ''
In United States v. Lynd (1965), he authored an opinion
holding a state court clerk in civil contempt for
willfully disregarding a court order allowing blacks to
register to vote. In Turner v. Goolsby (1965-1966), Bell
crafted an innovative desegregation order placing the
school system of Taliaferro County, Georgia, into a
receivership after local officials closed down the
county's only white school and secretly arranged for those
children to attend schools in adjoining counties.
One of Judge Bell's most important enforcement decisions
was United States v. Hinds County School Board (1969), a case
involving the development and implementation of desegregation
plans in thirty-three Mississippi school districts. This case
came about after the Supreme Court reversed and remanded a
Fifth Circuit order giving the state additional time to
desegregate, holding ``the continued operation of segregated
schools under a standard of allowing `all deliberate speed'
for desegregation is no longer constitutionally permissible''
(Alexander v. Holmes County Bd. of Educ. 1969). In an
extraordinary move, the Court ordered the Fifth Circuit
immediately to fashion and implement desegregation plans for
each school district, even though the school year was already
well under way. Chief Judge John R. Brown wasted little time
in assigning Bell the difficult task of handling the case.
Brown's reasons for doing so were obvious to the other
members of the court. By that time, Bell had proven himself
to be a brilliant tactician and a deft negotiator. As the
``man in the middle,'' he was adroit ``in the use of
compromise'' and ``had the ability to bring together opposing
sides, to find a common ground, and reconcile differences''
(Barrow and Walker 1998, 28). A judge who frequently hunted
with Bell claimed that he was so persuasive ``[he could] talk
the birds out of the trees to sit on his shoulder'' (28). His
colleagues had no doubt that he could handle this complex and
unwieldy case. Bell did not disappoint. He began by summoning
all of the school superintendents to New Orleans for a
meeting. According to one witness, ``He read the riot act to
them--He told them they were desegregating next month whether
they liked it or not'' (Strasser 1977). After flashing the
``big stick,'' Bell turned on his trademark charm. He spent
several weeks conferring with civil rights lawyers, school
board attorneys, and local officials about the details of the
respective desegregation plans and the manner in which they
would be implemented. This innovative approach ``drew praise
from all sides'' and helped safeguard ``the public's
perception of judicial even-handedness'' (Bass 1998a, 1505).
More important, the Hinds decision marked a turning point for
the Fifth Circuit's desegregation jurisprudence. In the past,
if a circuit panel found fault with a district court's
desegregation order, it would simply reverse and remand the
case with instructions to develop a new plan. In the
meantime, schools would remain segregated. After Hinds,
however, the status quo during desegregation litigation was a
desegregated school system.
Judge Bell was the Fifth Circuit's leading critic of using
busing as a means of disestablishing the ``separate but
equal'' school systems of the past. Although Bell strongly
believed in both the legal and moral correctness of Brown v.
Board of Education (1954), that black children have a
fundamental constitutional right to attend school with white
children and receive the same quality of education, he did
not favor integration--that is, busing children several hours
across town to achieve ``a racial ratio [in each school] that
reflected the total school population in the geographic
entity'' (Murphy 1999, 129). In his opinion, busing had
nothing to do with equal protection and everything to do with
social engineering. Bell interpreted Brown as giving black
students ``freedom of choice to go to schools, primarily in
their own neighborhoods'' (129). In this respect, he favored
a strict neighborhood-school policy, with a majority-to-
minority transfer policy that allowed students to transfer
to a school outside of their neighborhood so long as the
transfer did not have the effect of increasing the
majority of the students' race at that school. If
segregated schools still existed after the implementation
of this policy, Bell advocated pairing nearby schools
together as a means of further ``disestablishing the dual
school system'' (101). Although Bell's argument did not,
initially, carry the day, his valiant fight to preserve
neighborhood schools remains praiseworthy. Many historians
lavish praise on the activist members of the Fifth Circuit
for requiring busing, but the real-world consequences of
their actions have been devastating for public schools.
Bell believes that the decline of public education in the
United States is inextricably linked to the judiciary's
decision to impose ``forced integration and mandatory
busing'' on the schools: ``Anybody with one eye and half
sense should have known that busing would ruin them. The
neighborhood strengths were lost'' (132).
In addition to his formal participation on the bench, Bell
also distinguished himself as an expert in the area of
judicial administration, establishing ``many of the Fifth
Circuit's innovative screening and expediting processes''
(U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary 1977, 6). He held
several leadership roles in this area, serving as the
chairman of the Federal Judicial Center's Committee on
Innovation and Development (1968-1970), as a director of the
Federal Judicial Center (1973), and as chairman of the
American Bar Association's Commission on Standards of
Judicial Administration (1976). He also took time from his
judicial duties to serve as chairman of the Atlanta
Commission on Crime and Juvenile Delinquency (1965-1966).
During his fourteen-plus years on the Fifth Circuit, Judge
Bell participated in over 3,000 cases and authored more than
1,000 opinions. His reputation as jurist was such that four
separate presidents (Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan) had
Bell on their short list of potential Supreme Court nominees.
But as the fall of 1975 approached, Bell was restless. The
intellectually challenging civil rights cases had come and
gone, and he now spent the majority of his time dealing with
``a heavy load of criminal and habeas corpus matters,'' work
that he considered boring and dreary (Field Van Tassel 1993,
354). Around that same time, lawyers from King and Spalding
paid him a visit and asked him whether he would consider
leaving the bench and rejoining the firm. The offer was
tempting. Bell loved practicing law, and he missed working
with clients. After a few months, he informed his fellow
judges that he had decided to resign. They were taken aback
by his announcement. It was highly unusual for a federal
appellate judge to relinquish a lifetime appointment, and
Bell was, at that time, only the fourth judge to ever resign
from the Fifth Circuit. Although his colleagues were
disappointed by the decision, they were nothing but
complimentary of his service to the court. Judge Bryan
Simpson summed up their collective sentiment nicely, noting
that Bell ``was a tower of strength, and I think his strength
has been that he's been a balance wheel. He always took the
center ground, and he can draw people from either side when
we get in these real tough fights'' (Murphy 1999, 140).
When Griffin Bell decided to step down from the bench, he
thought his career as full-time public servant was over. But
eleven short months later, everything changed. A childhood
acquaintance, Jimmy Earl Carter, had been elected the thirty-
ninth president of the United States and selected Bell to be
his U.S. attorney general. Although he had no desire to
return to government service, Bell's patriotism was such that
he could not refuse a president's request to serve his
country. His selection, however, created a firestorm of
controversy, and several members from Bell's own party led
the charge to derail his nomination. After being subjected to
one of the most contentious Senate confirmation fights in
modern history, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted ten to
three, with one senator voting present, to recommend his
confirmation to the full Senate. On 25 January 1977, the U.S.
Senate voted seventy-five to twenty-one to confirm him. Later
that day, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger swore in Bell as the
nation's seventy-second U.S. attorney general.
Griffin Bell has been called one of the greatest attorney
generals of the twentieth century. Under his leadership, the
Department of Justice had an active legislative agenda on
issues such as judicial administration, criminal justice
reform, and intelligence reform. Bell also helped reshape
the federal judiciary by overseeing the selection of 152
new judges and in the process appointed more blacks,
women, and Hispanics to the bench than any other
administration had up to that point. His primary
achievement, however, was ``rebuilding the Justice
Department as a neutral zone in government [and] . . .
restoring the integrity of the FBI and our foreign
intelligence agencies in the wake of Watergate'' (Barry
2000). At the time of Bell's resignation, in August 1979,
Chief Justice Burger remarked that ``[n]o finer man has
ever occupied the great office of attorney general of the
United States or discharge[d] his duties with greater
distinction'' (Murphy 1999, 302).
In the years following his return to King and Spalding,
Griffin Bell has established himself as one of the country's
premier lawyers and most prolific rainmakers, bringing
numerous and profitable clients to the firm. Although he
handles a variety of complex legal matters, he is nationally
recognized for his expertise in conducting internal
investigations of high-profile corporate crime (for example,
E. F. Hutton check-kiting scandal; Exxon Valdez oil spill;
Dow Corning breast implant controversy). He has also received
a great deal of media attention for his pro bono
representation of Eugene Hasenfus, an American mercenary shot
down in Nicaragua while delivering arms to the Contras;
serving as Pres. George H. W. Bush's private attorney during
the Iran-Contra investigation;
[[Page S193]]
and guiding the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games
through a congressional investigation into actions taken by
committee members during the bidding process.
In addition to his private practice, Judge Bell has
continued to serve his country in a variety of leadership
roles. In 1980, he led the U.S. delegation to the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has also served as
cochairman of the Attorney General's National Task Force on
Violent Crime (1981); a member of the Secretary of State's
Advisory Committee on South Africa (1985 to 1987); a
director, and then chairman, of the Ethics Resource Center
(1986 to 1991); a member of the Board of Trustees of the
Foundation for the Commemoration of the United States
Constitution (1986-1989); vice chairman of President Bush's
Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform (1989); a member of
the Webster Commission, which, in March 2002, issued its
report on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) security
programs and Russian spy Robert Hanssen; and a member of the
ad hoc advisory committee established by Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld for the purpose of developing rules to govern
military tribunals (2002). During the Clinton impeachment
process, he was one of nineteen legal scholars asked to
testify before the House Judiciary Committee on the
historical origins of impeachment. In 1984, Bell received the
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Award for excellence in
law, and he was recently named one of the 100 Georgians of
the century.
Judge Bell's political clout remains considerable. In
recent years, this onetime Democrat has taken to endorsing
Republican presidential candidates. He lent his support to
Vice Pres. George H. W. Bush in 1992, Sen. Robert Dole in
1996, and Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. During the
presidential election controversy of 2000, Bell visited the
recount site and served as one of the Bush team's key
advisers. He also filed an amicus brief on behalf of the
American Center for Law and Justice in Bush v. Gore (2000).
After the election, Bell served as a member of president-
elect Bush's transition advisory team for the Department of
Justice. Although these actions have no doubt raised eyebrows
in the Democratic Party, Bell insists that he is not a
Republican: ``I haven't switched parties, I consider myself
to be an independent'' (``Griffin Bell, Carter's Attorney
General'' 1996).
Griffin Bell's life is an American success story. Born into
humble circumstances, he reached the heights of his
profession through a combination of talent, ambition, and an
indefatigable work ethic. More important, when positions of
power provided him with an opportunity to make a difference,
he consistently rose to the occasion. As a judge, his
``intelligence and even-handedness in administering justice
guided the South and the nation through some of its most
perilous times'' (Barry 2000). With all of his achievements,
this is Bell's greatest legacy: his commitment to the rule of
law and the equal rights of all citizens.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. There were many more important decisions in which he
was involved, and I was privileged to study and learn from them while
attending law school at the University of Tennessee.
Judge Bell was nominated by President Carter and confirmed by the
Senate on January 25, 1977, as the Nation's 72nd Attorney General. His
force of character and common sense revived a Justice Department that
suffered from the Watergate era. According to Terry Adamson, a law
clerk for the judge when he was on the Fifth Circuit, a principal
assistant for Judge Bell at the Justice Department and a long-time
friend of his, he said in an article that also appeared this week in
the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Bell recently told NPR reporter Nina Totenberg that his
effort to bring about transparency during his service at the
department was the core of restoring public confidence.
Certainly, it was.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Adamson's article be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[Jan. 7, 2009]
Hardworking Bell Leaves a Legacy To Be Appreciated
(By Terry Adamson)
Judge Griffin Bell and I were breakfasting in the White
House mess in 1991 with my wife, who was then on President
George H.W. Bush's senior staff. The president heard Bell was
there and sent a message to visit in the Oval Office. It was
a visit among friends, and Bush and his wife, Barbara, at
Bell's invitation, were soon at Sea Island where they had not
visited since their honeymoon. Rounds of golf were played, a
return engagement for Bell followed at Camp David that
included golf with Bush and Arnold Palmer, and Bush soon had
Bell as his personal lawyer. For Griffin Bell, who died
Monday at age 90, that was normal.
During his terminal illness, Bell's doctors told him to
establish a goal each day. He accomplished many during the
last six months, invigorated by the outpouring of visits and
calls of his lifetime of friends, and at peace after a
satisfying and long life. His mind stayed clear and vigorous
to the end. Former Atlanta Constitution editor Eugene
Patterson was one of those who told Bell in a call a few
weeks ago how ``the courage'' displayed by Bell and Gov.
Ernest Vandiver to bring Georgia within the legal
requirements of integration and save public education in
Georgia ``set my own bearing.''
Bell was a new 43-year-old judge for just a few months on
the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals when he drew the case that
ended the discriminatory county unit system and changed
Georgia elections. He was soon embroiled in Mississippi Gov.
Ross Barnett's defiance of court orders to admit James
Meredith to the University of Mississippi. The Georgia and
Mississippi cases were two among about 3,000 cases in which
he participated and more than 500 opinions that he wrote.
These cases reflected his frequent and significant role
during his nearly 15 years as a judge in which he synthesized
the court's center, advancing civil rights. President John F.
Kennedy went on television in the midst of the Barnett
controversy to cite Bell and other southern judges as
courageous heroes.
In 1977, Bell and President Jimmy Carter had a mission to
refurbish the Justice Department and FBI after the severe
tarnish of Watergate. He started and ended by boosting the
professionalism of the careerists in the department. When he
left, the esprit of the body of the men and women at Justice
was at an all-time high.
As a critical ingredient of this mission, Bell earned the
respect of a cynical post-Watergate press corps. Seemingly
small things were part of his plan, such as posting on the
press room bulletin board his own daily logs showing his
every meeting and telephone call with anyone outside the
Justice Department from the day before. He enforced rules
such as restricting White House contacts to only the highest
levels of the department to minimize even the appearance of
political pressures on lesser officials. Bell recently told
NPR reporter Nina Totenberg that this transparency was the
core of restoring public confidence.
While rigorous about his national security responsibilities
and proud of the first modern successful prosecutions of
spies, Bell also persuaded the intelligence community and the
Congress to trust the judiciary to oversee domestic
surveillance by authoring and passing the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. He recruited and persuaded
William Webster to resign a lifetime appellate judgeship to
become head of the FBI.
Bell implemented Carter's campaign pledge to give
meaningful roles to minorities and women. African-Americans
as solicitor general and the head of the civil rights
division were among his first two recruits. At the beginning
of the Carter presidency, there were few minorities and no
women judges on the federal appeals courts, and few on the
trial courts. It was one of the highest priorities of Carter
and Bell, and for the first time in history, significant
percentages of women and minorities became federal trial and
appellate judges.
As I watched Bell operate over the years, I was amazed not
only with the depth of his mind, but his laudable ability to
absorb and process the energy and knowledge of the law
clerks, aides, or fellow lawyers around him in order to
improve his own. The daily breakfast with other Justice
officials in the Martha Mitchell dining room was nothing but
fodder for his intellect.
Initially labeled by some critics as a ``crony'' of Carter,
21 senators voted against Bell's confirmation as attorney
general. All of these opponents later publicly voiced their
support for him. Bob Dole wrote in the Washington Post that
his vote against Bell was one of his two worst votes in
Congress. The leader of that initial opposition, Sen. Charles
McMathias, a liberal Republican from Maryland, also recanted
``the error of his opposition'' as he hosted Bell at his
Maryland farm before they together commemorated John
Marshall, the first chief justice, at a nearby rural burial
site.
Bell was a people's person of the first order, who valued
his own common origins. Secretaries around the Justice
Department would be surprised when this attorney general
would wander into their far-flung offices, alone and
unannounced. It took no more than five minutes before Bell
had established a common acquaintance. On the day a massive
snowstorm engulfed and closed Washington, the Washington Post
called the offices of the Cabinet to see who was working. He
and I were the only ones there that morning, and I was off
making coffee, when the phone rang. He answered in his
recognizable and unassuming drawl. That was the lead of the
Washington Post story about who was working in Washington.
Bell's most mentioned trait was his rich humor and wit.
Former Atlanta Constitution editor Reg Murphy wrote an
engaging biography laden with samplings of this wit:
``Uncommon Sense: The Achievement of Griffin Bell.'' Bell
introduced a widely rumored aphrodisiac, rooster pepper
sausage, to Washington, headlined in a front-page story by
reporter Phil Gailey, ``Rooster Pepper has White House
Links.''
Bell gave a still remembered acceptance speech in 1979 as
``a candidate for President of the United States'' at the
Alfalfa Club, an annual banquet and mock political event in
Washington usually attended by the current president, the
Cabinet, military, judicial, political and business leaders.
He began in his
[[Page S194]]
distinctive Georgia drawl, ``I would like to advise that
arrangements have been made for simultaneous translation.''
He continued (paraphrasing Churchill's great statement),
``Our motto will be to wage obfuscation. We will wage
obfuscation on the beaches and on the landing fields and in
the political arena of America. And when all else fails and
we can no longer obfuscate, we will tell the truth to the
extent we know it.''
We celebrate with deep affection the life of this rare man.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. When leaving the Fifth Circuit, Judge Bell returned to
King and Spalding and distinguished himself as one of the country's
premier lawyers.
In closing, as I have paid tribute to his distinguished career, I
wish to take a moment to pay tribute to this wonderful gentleman and
friend. As a lawyer, I learned so much from him about the practice of
law. As a Congressman and Senator, I learned so much about politics and
public service.
As a friend, I enjoyed our visits and conversations. His keen sense
of humor has been compared to Mark Twain. As my good friend, Bob
Steed--Georgia's very own ``Mark Twain''; a real humorist, columnist,
and long-time law partner of Judge Bell--said this week of his wisdom
and wit:
If he took a position, he'd take it strongly and defend it.
But if someone improved it, he was willing to give way. His
ego didn't get involved with choices . . . He was sharp to
the very end. He told his son that there must be a committee
in heaven in charge of dying, because it was taking so long.
That was Judge Bell.
Griffin Bell changed the course of the history of our country. As a
judge on the Fifth Circuit, his decisions regarding integration of
school systems in Georgia and across the South were a model for
integration throughout the Nation. In his role as Attorney General, he
did much to restore the public's trust in the Department of Justice. He
was a close personal friend of mine, and this is not only a national
loss but a personal one as well.
Mr. President, I have before me a commencement speech that he gave at
Mercer University Law School in 2002. I ask unanimous consent that it
be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Dr. Godsey, Congressman Chambliss, members of the faculty,
families of graduates, graduates and friends:
I congratulate each one of you graduates on having
completed law school. Through much study and great effort,
you are about to become lawyers. You are about to become
members of a privileged class of Americans because as
lawyers, you are agreeing to serve your fellow Americans in
resolving those kinds of disputes which arise in a free
country.
We have many rights and many responsibilities, and lawyers
are necessary to resolve the conflicts which arise from time
to time with respect to those rights and responsibilities.
In 1835, a young Frenchman by the name of Alexis de
Tocqueville came to this country to study our prison system.
He stayed for two years and ended up writing Democracy in
America, an epic study of our democratic system. He reached
many conclusions, and two apply to you.
First, he said that almost every problem that arises in a
democracy will eventually be resolved in the court system.
This was true then and it is true now.
Second, he said that there was no aristocracy in America,
but that the nearest approach to aristocracy was in the
lawyer class. His thought was that lawyers occupy an unusual
and favored position in our system.
So now that you are about to become aristocrats, I want to
give you a short lecture on behavior. We have an ample supply
of lawyers in our country, and some of the lawyers overlook
the obligation to serve others. They also distort the
privilege of practicing law by converting it into a mere
occupation. I was taught in law school that a lawyer had
ethical obligations well above the morals of the marketplace.
We are privileged to represent others in resolving their
problems, but we have to do so with the public interest in
mind. We can advise and counsel and defend clients, but we
cannot advise or facilitate activities which violate the law.
We live in a very complex world where the channels of
commerce depend on tax laws, which are often unfathomable.
There is a fine line between tax avoiders and tax evaders.
Accounting standards can be evaded with the result that the
public loses confidence in our business corporations and in
the integrity of the marketplace. Lawyers are the watchmen on
the wall in the sense that they should say no to clients who
engage in such activities.
One of the first duties of a lawyer is to remain detached
in any representation to the end that you do not facilitate
the breaking of the law. Always err on the side of doing
right. You and only you are responsible for your ethics.
You should attach yourself to a mentor at the earliest
possible time. Those of you who will be trial lawyers--and
that will probably be about half of you--will not have the
privilege of being trained as barristers, as would be the
case in England, where you would have your training at an Inn
of Court. Inns of Court do not teach law, but they teach
lawyers how to conduct themselves and how to behave
themselves. Once they are certified by their mentors, as
knowing how to conduct themselves, they become barristers. If
you attach yourself to a mentor who has integrity--and I can
assure you that the older lawyers are always glad to help
young lawyers--you will absorb those qualities of conduct
that will make you into respected lawyers.
The rules of conduct that you should follow in your
practice can be simply stated.
1. To a client a lawyer owes undivided allegiance and the
utmost application of your learning, skill and industry as
well as the employment of all appropriate legal means within
the law to protect and enforce the interests of the clients.
You should not be deterred by any fear of judicial disfavor
or public unpopularity. Nor should you be influenced by self
interest.
2. To opposing counsel a lawyer owes a duty of courtesy,
candor in the pursuit of truth and cooperation in all
respects--not inconsistent with the clients' interests. You
also must scrupulously observe all mutual understandings.
Your word is your bond.
3. To the courts you owe respect, diligence, candor and
punctuality. You should also work to ensure the independence
of the judiciary and protect the courts against unjust and
improper criticism. In return, you should expect from the
judge and the courts that you be treated with respect and
that your dignity and independence as an officer of the court
be maintained. I have always thought it a mark of great
distinction that a lawyer in court can make a statement, as
they say, ``in his or her place'' to the court, without the
necessity of being put under oath. This is a mark of our
professionalism.
4. In the administration of justice, you must abide by the
rules and conform to the highest principles of professional
rectitude, irrespective of the desires of the clients or
others.
5. To the public you owe the duty of making certain that
the system for administering justice is fair and efficient,
and you should do what you can to improve the system.
6. To the public you also owe the duty of seeing to it that
counsel is made available to those who cannot afford counsel
either on a pro bono basis or for such fees as can be
afforded.
7. Finally, to our country you owe the duty of leadership.
You are in the class ``to whom much is given, much is
expected.''
You should arrange your affairs as lawyers so as to have
time to be thorough and diligent. The bane of many lawyers
may be having too much practice. You do not serve any client
well when you lack the time to be thorough and prompt. You
are not required to take every matter that is presented to
you, but having assumed a representation, it becomes your
duty to finish the representation. Sometimes you will make a
bad bargain, but as professionals, you are still obligated to
carry out the representation.
Someone asked one of my friends when we were in law school
why so many of us veterans were going to law school just
after World War II. My friend replied that we were hoping to
gain a part of the American dream. In most instances, my
generation has found the American dream. We have had good,
rewarding lives and we have taken great pride in our
profession.
I am proud to be a lawyer. I am proud of the fact that my
son is a lawyer, and I am proud of the fact that my grandson,
a member of this class, is about to become a lawyer. Being a
lawyer is an honorable profession, and our obligation is to
maintain it with honor.
I feel certain that all of you will have that attitude
toward being lawyers, and I wish you well as you go forth now
into the practice. I hope that each one of you will find the
American dream.
Thank you.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I remember the day very well when Judge Bell gave that
commencement speech at Mercer Law School because that day his grandson
Griffin, III graduated from Mercer Law School, and my son Bo graduated
from Mercer that same day. I was privileged not only to be there to see
my son graduate from law school but also to share the dais with Judge
Bell and to introduce Judge Bell to make that commencement address.
He was a great American. He was a great Georgian. He was a terrific
lawyer with unparalleled credentials, unparalleled integrity, and
someone who is going to be missed by our State and by our country.
(Ms. KLOBUCHAR assumed the chair.)
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