ATLANTA --- A public graveside service will be held for Griffin B. Bell, the former U.S. attorney general and appeals court judge who died Monday after a long illness. He was 90.
Judge Bell was one of Atlanta's most prominent attorneys and served as U.S. attorney general for his friend President Carter.
Mr. Carter said he was "deeply saddened" by Judge Bell's death and called him a "trusted and enduring public figure."
David Hudson, an Augusta lawyer and friend, praised his integrity.
"The number of friends he made and the number of lives made better because of him are incalculable," Mr. Hudson said.
His career was remembered with admiration across Georgia.
"With his awe-inspiring wisdom and a rare quotient of insight, he made complex issues transparent, and he characteristically brought light and clarity amidst shadows of confusion," said Mercer University Chancellor R. Kirby Godsey, who worked with him for 27 years.
"I have known many, many judges during my legal career," said Nancy Grace, a former Fulton County prosecutor who hosts CNN's The Nancy Grace Show . "Judge Bell, without a doubt, was the most honorable of them all. He tempered his wisdom with humor and spoke not only from his head but from his heart. He will be missed sorely, but, as of this moment, heaven has become even greater."
A public graveside service in Oak Grove Cemetery will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday in his hometown of Americus, Ga., his grandson Griffin Bell III said. A public memorial will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Decatur. He is also survived by his wife, Nancy Kinnebrew; son, Griffin B. Bell Jr., both of Atlanta; granddaughter Katherine Bell McClure; and five great grandchildren.
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