Federal judge who presided over rare Michigan death penalty trial dies at 79

By ED WHITE
Associated Press

Robert Holmes Bell, a retired federal judge who presided over a trial that included a rare death sentence in Michigan, has died at age 79. Bell was a U.S. district judge for 30 years after serving as a prosecutor and judge in the Lansing area. None of Bell’s cases was bigger than the 2002 trial of Marvin Gabrion. It was historic because the jury agreed with prosecutors that Gabrion deserved the federal death penalty for killing a woman in a national forest. Bell signed the death sentence. Gabrion still remains on death row, 21 years later. Bell took pride in personally giving encouragement to people who had returned home from prison. Bell said that he would “tell them I care.”