[1] During World War II, he served in the Pacific theater, where he earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
[3] Pratt presided over a number of high-profile cases during his time on the bench, including the trial of G. Gordon Liddy in connection with the Watergate scandal.
[1][7] Pratt ruled in 1974 that the condition of the pardon was valid because (1) it had a direct relationship to the public interest and (2) it did not "unreasonably infringe" on Hoffa's constitutional freedoms.
"[9] Pratt also presided over another case, Adams v. Richardson, brought by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
The NAACP sought to compel the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to speed up desegregation in schools.
[10] Pratt rejected the HEW's argument that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the department the discretion to wait for "voluntary compliance" from the states.
[10] Pratt also oversaw the long-running Evans case, involving conditions at the District of Columbia's Forest Haven institution in Laurel, Maryland, a home for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
[15] In 1990, Pratt held the district in civil contempt of court after learning that just two physicians were caring for 232 Forest Haven residents, including one who had been determined to be "professionally incompetent" by the Maryland Commission on Medical Discipline two years earlier.
[2][4] He called the Federal Sentencing Guidelines "atrocious"[1] and believed they set forth excessively harsh penalties for first-time offenders.