Randy Evans's blog

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.

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 2025 college football season is in the history books.

The season ended with last week’s national championship victory by Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza and his Indiana University Hoosiers over the University of Miami.

The season began back on August 23 in Dublin, Ireland, matching Iowa State University against Kansas State University in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.

A lot has happened since the Cyclones’ 24-21 victory.

Iowa State President Wendy Wintersteen retired. The Iowa Board of Regents screened a bunch of candidates and hired David Cook, the North Dakota State University president, to replace her.

Cyclone coach Matt Campbell resigned after Penn State University lured him away to take over its football program. That same day, Iowa State announced he would be replaced by Jimmy Rogers from Washington State University.

Yet, in the five months since the football season started, Iowa State still has not provided me with financial records I requested on September 4 concerning the Ireland trip and the Aer Lingus game.

Truth should be measured by evidence, not by political allegiance.

Can’t we all agree on that?

With that in mind, a useful question for citizens and journalists to ask at times like this is simple: “Help me understand …”

The phrasing invites the person being questioned to explain his or her views on some matter of interest without the questioner coming across as accusatory.

Had I been in the White House press briefing room last week for one of Karoline Leavitt’s Q&A’s, I would have framed a question like this about the Minneapolis woman’s shooting death by a federal agent:

“Help me understand why the president and his top allies have called Renee Good an agitator and domestic terrorist, whereas they have portrayed Ashli Babbitt as a really good person and said the U.S. Capitol Police officer who shot her got away with murder?”

It was Christmas Eve. The gifts were laid beneath the Christmas tree at the home of Merlin and Nelda Powers in Urbandale.

But the family’s holiday celebration ended abruptly that day in 1968 when the Powerses’ 10-year-old daughter Pamela disappeared from the YMCA in downtown Des Moines while the family attended her brother’s wrestling meet.

Two days passed before the family received the horrible answer to their “where is Pamela” question. Police located the girl’s body in a roadside ditch just off Interstate Highway 80 near Mitchellville.

The discovery came after Cleatus Leaming, a legendary Des Moines police detective, delivered what forever will be known as his “Christian burial speech” to a part-time lay minister, Robert Anthony Williams, who lived in the apartments above the YMCA. Leaming gave Williams that speech as they returned to Des Moines from Davenport, where Williams had surrendered to police.

Days removed from the winter solstice, when Iowa’s nights are the longest, we have another example of the absence of sunshine in Iowa government. And this example shows why the Legislature has much to do about openness and accountability when it convenes on January 12.

A court decision last week with ties to the collapse in May 2023 of an apartment building in Davenport highlights the urgent need for legislative action. The case involves more than the public’s right to know, considering that three people died in the collapse and rescue workers needed to amputate a survivor’s leg to free her from the rubble.

Before the collapse, tenants and community activists raised concerns to Davenport officials about the structural integrity of the six-story building located across the street from City Hall. But city leaders moved slowly, even a few hours before the tragedy when a passing masonry worker noticed a bulging rear wall and called the fire department.

The officials’ lack of urgency to those complaints became a political issue in that year’s city election. Davenport’s mayor and City Council openly defended the city staff. But in late summer, the city attorney negotiated lucrative separation payments to the city administrator and two of her administrative assistants in exchange for their resignations.

All the while, these officials kept Davenport residents in the dark — and accountability suffered.

The public did not learn the details of the settlements with City Administrator Corrin Spiegel and assistants Tiffany Thorndike and Samantha Torres — $1.6 million for Spiegel, $157,000 for Thorndike, $140,500 for Torres — until after the city election.

There seems to be a lack of consistency — if not outright contradictions — in the president’s messaging on drug trafficking into the United States.

Recent news headlines bear out the disconnect between what the president says and what he does.

One thing is certain: Donald Trump’s mixed messaging is leading many Americans to conclude that our nation continues to lack a coherent federal strategy for dealing with the scourge of illicit drugs.

See what you think about these questions of death and liberty.

WWBRD? What would Bob Ray do?

Events last week in Chicago and Washington and at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport provide stark reminders that our nation’s leaders have seemingly forgotten a biblical command around for the ages.

It is one Robert Ray followed during his tenure as Iowa governor, which ended some 42 years ago.

Ray was front of mind as I digested the news last week. His service contrasted with the haunting picture the three easily missed events presented of who we are as Americans and who we are becoming.

As Iowans headed to the polls this week to elect local school board members, they faced an issue beyond the usual ones of taxes, student achievement, teacher pay, curriculum and enrollment.

This year, school board and administrators’ performance and trustworthiness were front and center in some school districts. And on that, for voters, it is what they do not know that might hurt them.

Case in point: The state’s largest district, the Des Moines Public Schools, was thrust into the national spotlight two months ago when federal agents arrested Superintendent Ian Roberts for being in the United States without legal permission.

Only then, and only by the belated work of journalists, did the public learn that he had fictitious entries on his resume and that the district had withheld facts and information about him.



Not surprisingly these days, free speech on college campuses is back in the headlines.

That makes it worthwhile to highlight the seven-page policy the Iowa Board of Regents wrote to proclaim how it values and protects freedom of expression at the three state universities.

Before getting to that, it is important to note the regents did not start with blank slate when they crafted their policy.

First, they and their policy must comply with the First Amendment, which became part of the Constitution when the lands of Iowa still belonged to France. Second, any sidestepping of the First Amendment could prove expensive for government administrators who discriminate among speakers based on the content of their speech.