Hearing the voices of America

In the United States, there is not just one way to think or speak

U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt. (Photo from 2021 interview for the Historical Society for the United States Courts in the Eighth Circuit.)

JANUARY ENDED WITH a notable week for federal courts because of the voices of its judges.

Judges in Minnesota and Texas spoke with clarity in these troubled times. In between them, a longtime Iowa federal judge’s voice fell silent after a quarter century of delivering justice, along with lessons in compassion, fairness and our shared history.

Robert W. Pratt was 78 when he died last week. The Emmetsburg native was a U.S. district judge in the southern half of Iowa from 1997 to 2023.

Pratt began his legal career working for Iowa Legal Aid, a nonprofit law firm that champions society’s underdogs and gives a voice to those who rarely are heard in our society.

As a judge, Pratt was at the center of a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court case, Gall vs. United States, that recognized federal judges deserve a louder voice when issuing sentences in criminal cases.

Before the Gall precedent, federal sentencing guidelines severely constrained judges in the name of exacting uniform penalties nationwide. For Brian Gall, who was accused of drug law violations, that would have meant three years in federal prison.

But Judge Pratt, after hearing the facts of Gall’s brief involvement in a drug conspiracy, his actions to turn his life around and stay out of legal trouble for years after, opted for probation not prison.

The U.S. Justice Department objected because the sentence did not conform to the federal guidelines. But the Supreme Court sided with Pratt by making clear that sentencing guidelines are advisory, not mandatory. The justices said when trial judges offer reasonable explanations for their decisions, appeals courts should not second-guess them just because they might have imposed a different sentence.

The Supreme Court’s ruling underscored that trial judges do more than rubber stamp government policies or political agendas. Instead, as constitutionally independent arbiters, judges can exercise their discretion as to whether, when and how to act.

Pre-schooler Liam Conejo Ramos is detained by a federal agent. (Photo courtesy of Columbia Heights Public School District and Ramos family attorney)

THAT BRINGS US TO two judges whose decision-making was on public display in cases growing from the controversial actions in Minneapolis by demonstrators and federal immigration agents. The judges’ orders sharply rebuked federal officials.

On Saturday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of Texas ordered the Department of Homeland Security to release Minneapolis asylum seeker Adrian Conejo Arias and his 5-year-old son Liam from a Texas detention center. A photo of Liam in his blue floppy-eared winter hat quickly became a symbol of the government’s crackdown on immigrants.

The boy and his father were taken into custody on January 21 as they returned home from the child’s school. Federal immigration officials said father and son were not in the country legally.

But Judge Biery said any deportation attempt must follow proper legal procedures. His order spoke bluntly in language that even non-lawyers comprehend. Biery wrote that father and son “seek nothing more than some modicum of due process and the rule of law.”

He went on, “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children. This Court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported but do so by proper legal procedures.”

Earlier in the week, Patrick Schiltz, Minnesota’s chief federal judge, chastised U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for repeatedly ignoring court orders.

“Attached to this order is an appendix that identified 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases,” he wrote. “This list should give pause to anyone — no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

Schiltz added, “ICE is not a law unto itself. ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.”

BACK TO JUDGE PRATT: His death is a loss not only to his family and friends. Ordinary Iowans also lost a voice worth hearing.

In 2009, the judge and his friend Michael Gartner, then majority owner of the Iowa Cubs baseball team, decided the annual Fourth of July game would be a fitting time and place to administer the oath of citizenship to new U.S. citizens.

In the years that followed, hundreds of people from around the globe became naturalized citizens along the third base line at Principal Park. Until his retirement, Judge Pratt’s words of welcome stirred the emotions of citizens new and old alike each year.

“For over 200 years, this country has been blessed with a constant infusion of new people from all over the world who brought their languages, their heritages, and their cultural values with them,” the judge would say. “Today it is you who so bless us.”

He would add, “You may hear voices in this land say that there is only one true American religion. Do not believe it. … You may hear voices in this land say that there is only one true American way to think and believe about political matters, economic matters, and social matters. Do not believe it. … You may hear voices in this land say that there is only one true American set of values. Do not believe it.

“Simply stated, there is no single American way to think or believe. Indeed, conformity of thought and belief would be contrary to the underlying principles of this great nation.”

Time and again in his life, Judge Pratt embraced enabling a multitude of voices. And two of his judicial colleagues made sure their independent voices were heard last week.

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