‘Giant in the courtroom’ Robert Bell dies at 78

Robert Y. Bell was a larger-than-life lawyer, remembered for his commanding presence and booming voice, as well as his zealous advocacy and sharp legal mind.

In his near half a century as an attorney, he worked with farmworker leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, defended protesting Vietnam War veterans, and also represented convicted murderer and rapist William Archie Fain.

Bell, 78, who died Nov. 16 at his Santa Rosa home from heart disease, had close to 30 published cases in both appellate courts and the California Supreme Court, an impressive record of case law, or court decisions that make new legal interpretations and can be cited as precedents.

“He was very much a giant in the courtroom,” said Sonoma County Judge Gary Medvigy, a former prosecutor who often went up against the longtime Santa Rosa defense attorney. “You knew he was a worthy advocate - one you had to work and understand and be prepared to counter, or he would convince you of his position.”

Long before the Internet, Bell was known for the hours he would spend researching cases in the law library and his ability to make his arguments to a panel of four appeals court judges, for example, without the use of notes, relying only on preparation and memorization.

But it was his huge voice and measured speech, like a venerable orator or Shakespearean actor, that other members of the bar will never forget.

“You could hear Bob Bell a courtroom away when he was in full throat and arguing his point,” said Santa Rosa defense attorney Jack Montgomery. “He had a delivery and resonance that seemed to echo throughout the courtroom. He was an extraordinary presence.”

“When he walked into the courtroom and made his presentation, the building reverberated,” Medvigy said.

Bell was occasionally described as a “bombastic” barrister, but his admirers said that was a misleading label that connotes his arguments were hollow, or without merit.

“As an appellate lawyer and scholar he was kind of head and shoulders above other people,” Medvigy said. “His arguments were righteous, well articulated and often so nuanced - kind of higher quality.”

“He could quote you (legal) authority with the drop of a hat and have entire citations for you, and tell you the holding in the case and dissenting opinion,” defense attorney Jonathan Steele said. “He had one of those legendary legal minds. He was a brilliant person, a character.”

Defense attorney Chris Andrian said Bell, who was admitted to the State Bar in 1963, helped prepare the way for lawyers like himself who came to the county in the 1970s.

“I wasn’t the first eccentric person to show up here,” Andrian said. “I was the young hippie lawyer. He paved the way, to make way for someone outside the box.”

Andrian said seeing Bell in action in the courtroom was a little like theater: “I always got a kick out of watching him. He was sometimes contentious - not a shrinking violet. Sometimes he rubbed judges the wrong way.”

Born in Lewiston, Maine, Bell’s father was a traveling salesman whose family had come from Lithuania. Bell’s middle name was Yigael, a testament to his Jewish heritage, what Bell variously said was the name of an angel in the Old Testament, or a word that means to redeem, or be redeemed.

After graduating from high school in Lewiston in 1954, Bell went on to Brandeis University, where he graduated in 1959 with a degree in political science.

At one point, he worked for the Lewiston Daily Sun and briefly as a reporter for the Haverhill (Mass.) Journal. But he had his sights set on becoming a lawyer and by 1962 received his degree from Boalt School of Law at UC Berkeley.

In 1963, he began practicing in Ukiah, in the law firm of Petersen and Petersen, one of whose principals was state Sen. Frank S. Petersen, a Democrat who represented Lake and Mendocino counties.

By 1967, Bell was directing attorney for the Sonoma County Office of California Rural Legal Assistance. Two years later, he opened up his own practice in an old white house on Third Street in downtown Santa Rosa.

Fewer than 200 lawyers were working in Sonoma County at the time. “You knew the name and face of practically everyone in the bar,” he told California Lawyer a couple of decades later. “There was a healthy camaraderie among attorneys, too.”

Bell at one point worked with Cesar Chavez, defending farmworkers and sympathetic protesters who were arrested in the struggle to bring better labor conditions and pay to migrant workers.

He used to joke that he defended one farmworker for “assault with a deadly melon.”

In 1976, he ran unsuccessfully for the seat being vacated by retiring Judge Lincoln F. Mahan, but came in fourth in the five-man field, with John J. Gallagher winning the seat on the bench.

Bell represented police and teachers unions, but he also worked for a number of notorious defendants, including San Quentin convict Ruchell Magee, who along with Angela Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with a 1970 shootout at the Marin Civic Center that left four people dead, including a judge.

He also became known for establishing the defense of “diminished capacity” in the case of People vs. Conley. It essentially allowed attorneys in murder cases to argue their clients could not form the intent to kill because their minds were addled by alcohol, drugs or other factors.

Bell also represented Archie Fain after he was convicted and given the death penalty for killing a 17-year-old Modesto football star and raping his two female companions in 1967. Bell would succeed in getting Fain’s death sentence reversed and also help obtain his parole in 1983 despite a storm of public protest and over the objection of then-Gov. George Deukmejian.

Fain was charged five years later with assault and attempting to rape a 20-year-old Hayward woman, but a jury acquitted him after Bell convinced them the victim’s testimony was coached and witness identification of Fain as the alleged assailant was tainted.

“He was always fighting for everybody’s rights, He did not discriminate,” said Bell’s wife, Terry, who was with him for 20 years and also worked as his paralegal.

“A lot of people were not great fans of Bob. One of the problems with being a defense attorney is a lot of people don’t understand defending someone’s constitutional rights is defending everyone’s constitutional rights. That was his position - protecting one person protects everybody.”

Bell described himself as an incurable romantic when it comes to individual rights. “I tend to see the courtroom as the last bastion for the individual,” he told one interviewer.

“He was a champion of the downtrodden and oppressed. He spent his entire life rallying against injustice and fighting the good fight, all the way up to the Supreme Court, and made a lot of law,” defense attorney Montgomery said.

Bell struggled with heart problems for years and narrowly survived an operation in the early 1990s for an aorta that almost burst. He had a four-way bypass operation in 1999. He stopped practicing law about four years ago.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Daniel Matthew Bell, and a daughter, Sarah Shoshanna Bell, both of Santa Rosa; stepchildren Felicity Doyle Kelty of Hayward, Justin Miles Grinnell and Laurel Ashley Grinnell, both of San Diego; and four grandchildren.

A celebration of his life is planned for January, with an exact date yet to be determined.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or at clark.mason @pressdemocrat.com.