Griffin B. Bell, the dean of Georgia lawyers and the United States Attorney General during most of the presidency of his childhood neighbor Jimmy Carter, died at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta on Monday morning. He was 90.
A spokesman for King & Spalding, the law firm where he was senior counsel, said the cause of death was complications from pancreatic cancer.
Judge Bell, as he was almost always addressed long after his 15 years' service on the Federal bench, embodied more than a few of the clichés about Southern gentlemen of the law, with his small-town background, a manner that was often called courtly, self-deprecating humor, a gift for persuasion and an instinct for politics.
But he was also known for strong principles and an independent streak, a reputation that made him a popular choice for blue-ribbon commissions and high-profile investigations of corporate malfeasance – to the point that he established a whole "special matters" practice at his law firm to handle such assignments.
Though a politically active Democrat nearly all his life, he often stood apart from many in his party in Georgia, whether by opposing racial segregation in the 1950's or by acting as President George H.W. Bush's personal counsel during the Iran-Contra investigations in the early 1990's.
More
