The MSU-DCL College of Law will host a lecture by Judge Robert Holmes Bell at 7 p.m. today.

Bell was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in 1987 by President Reagan.

In 2002, when Michigan outlawed capital punishment, Bell heard the first death sentence case in Michigan since 1846. Marvin Gabrion, accused of murdering a woman on federal property, was sentenced to death. The case marked the first federal death sentence imposed in a state that does not have the death penalty since the reinstatement of the federal death penalty.

The lecture will take place in the Castle Board Room, room 343 of the MSU-DCL College of Law Building.