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In Baltimore in 1960, 12 African-American students, mostly from Dunbar High School, entered a downtown restaurant. They were refused service and subsequently arrested and convicted for trespassing. One of the Dunbar students, Robert M. Bell, led an appeal of the verdict in a landmark civil rights case, Bell v. Maryland, which eventually was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and brought an end to de facto racial segregation in Maryland.
Chief Judge Robert M. Bell was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on July 6, 1943, and raised in Baltimore. After graduation from Dunbar High, he pursued his education first at Morgan State College, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1966, and then at Harvard University Law School, where he received his JD in 1969.
He soon began his historic odyssey through Maryland's legal system. He began his legal career as an attorney at the firm of Piper and Marbury. He then became a judge on the Maryland bench, which he has served for more than thirty-five years.
Judge Bell first came to the bench in 1975 as a judge of the District Court of Maryland sitting in Baltimore City. He next served as ajudge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore , later the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, from 1980 until 1984, at which point he was appointed to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland. In 1991, Judge Bell was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state's highest court. With his October 23, 1996 designation, by Governor Parris Glendening, as chief judge of the Court of Appeals, Robert M. Bell became the only active judge in the state to have served at least four years on all four levels of Maryland's judiciary, and the first African-American to be named the state's chief jurist.
In that capacity, he manages over 3,000 employees and determines the Judiciary's annual budget. In addition to his many duties as chief judge, Judge Bell lectures frequently at schools and community groups. His involvement also has included service as chair of the Judicial Compensation Committee and of the Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO), formerly the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Commission. He also chairs the Committee on Building Public Trust and Confidence in the...