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Justice Kenneth B. Bell, a seventh-generation Pensacolian, was appointed to the Court on December 30, 2002 by Governor Jeb Bush and took office on January 7, 2003. Before his appointment, he served for twelve years as a trial judge in the First Judicial Circuit of Florida, where he handled more than 27,500 circuit court cases. Prior to becoming a circuit judge, Justice Bell was a Board certified real estate attorney in a private law practice.

Justice Bell graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Pensacola in 1974, and earned his bachelor's degree from Davidson College in North Carolina. He graduated cum laude from Florida State University's College of Law in 1982.

From 2000 to the present Justice Bell served on the Supreme Court's Circuit Committee on Professionalism. He has been a member of the Escambia-Santa Rosa Bar Association, a member of the Board of Directors for the Escambia County 4-H Foundation and the Waterfront Rescue Mission, and was the founding President of the Board of Directors for the Friends of Children's Hospital at Sacred Heart, Inc. He helped found Yan-Bian Chinese-Korean Technical University, the first private university in mainland China since the communist revolution, and he worked with Proclamation International, which assisted Ugandans in rebuilding their nation after the fall of Idi Amin.

Married since 1983, Justice Bell and his wife Victoria Scherer Bell have four children, Bradley, Grace, Stephanie, and Reed. His paternal ancestors immigrated to the Pensacola area around 1819, when Florida still was a Spanish colony.