Patti B. Saris (born July 20, 1951) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She is also the former chair of the United States Sentencing Commission.

Early life and education
Saris was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended Girls' Latin School, and later received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Radcliffe College in 1973 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1976.

Legal career
Saris was a law clerk for Judge Robert Braucher of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1976 to 1977. She was in private practice with the law firm of Foley, Hoag & Eliot in Boston from 1977 to 1979, served as Staff counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1979 to 1981, and then returned to private practice with the firm of Berman, Dittmar & Engel, P.C. from 1981 to 1982.

Saris then served as Assistant United States Attorney of the District of Massachusetts from 1982 to 1986. She was Chief of the Civil Division from 1984 to 1986. From 1986 to 1989 she was a United States magistrate judge for the District of Massachusetts. She was an associate justice in the Trial Court of Massachusetts, Superior Court Department from 1989 to 1993.

Federal judicial service
On the recommendation of Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, Saris was nominated as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts by President Bill Clinton on October 27, 1993, to a seat vacated by Walter Jay Skinner. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 20, 1993, and received her commission on November 24, 1993. She served as Chief Judge from January 1, 2013, until December 31, 2019.

In 2008, Saris sat by designation with the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the case of Cook v. Gates, which upheld the "Don't ask, Don't tell" (DADT) policy (Title 10, Section 654) against due process and equal protection Fifth Amendment challenges and a free speech challenge under the First Amendment, and which found that no earlier Supreme Court decision held that sexual orientation is a suspect or quasi-suspect classification. Saris concurred with the majority regarding due process and equal protection, while dissenting with the rejection of the First Amendment challenge, because "if the Act were applied to punish statements about one's status as a homosexual, it would constitute a content-based speech restriction subject to strict scrutiny" and that "the availability of an administrative remedy does not defeat a First Amendment claim that the government is systematically applying the Act in such a way that it unconstitutionally burdens protected speech".

Among the notable cases presided over by Saris on the District Court was a 2018 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil suit against Greek Orthodox priest Emmanuel Lemelson, regarding a short sale. After a federal jury returned a mixed verdict, the SEC sought $2.3 million in penalties against Lemelson, to include disgorgement and interest along with a lifetime injunction barring Lemelson from the securities industry. Saris, noting that jurors did not accept the SEC's argument that Lemelson had engaged in a "short and distort" scheme, rejected the SEC's proposed penalty, fining Lemelson only $160,000, while enjoining Lemelson and his firm from further securities violations for the next five years.

United States Sentencing Commission
In April 2010, President Obama nominated Saris as Commissioner and Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission.  She was confirmed by the Senate on December 22, 2010 and sworn in by Justice Elena Kagan on February 16, 2011. Her term expired on January 3, 2017.

Personal life
Saris has lived in Brookline, Massachusetts, and she has four children. She enjoys reading books, and in one case had read the novel of a convicted drug kingpin who later stood before her seeking a reduction in his life sentence.

See also
List of Jewish American jurists

References

External links

1951 births
Living people
20th-century American judges
20th-century American women judges
21st-century American judges
21st-century American women judges
Assistant United States Attorneys
Chairpersons of the United States Sentencing Commission
Harvard Law School alumni
Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Lawyers from Boston
Massachusetts Superior Court justices
Members of the United States Sentencing Commission
People associated with Foley Hoag
Radcliffe College alumni
United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton
United States magistrate judges