[2] Pierce was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on September 8, 1981, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated by Judge Murray Gurfein.

Pierce became the third African-American to serve on the Second Circuit, following Thurgood Marshall and Amalya Lyle Kearse.

[2] In 1978, Chief Justice Warren Burger appointed Pierce to serve on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In 1995 he retired from the federal judiciary in order to travel abroad and he became Director of the USAID-funded Cambodian Court Training Project Cambodia.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his mother, Mary Leora Bellinger Pierce, a classical pianist who accompanied Marian Anderson, died of pneumonia when he was five years old.

Pierce was married twice, first to Wilma Verenia Taylor, with whom he had three sons, Warren, Michael and Mark.

Richard and Hannah's son, Adam, served in the New Jersey Militia, which fought in the Revolutionary War at the Battles of Crosswicks and Monmouth.

For consecutive years, Ebony Magazine listed Pierce as one of the most influential African Americans in the United States.