Juan Ramon Sánchez

Juan Ramon Sánchez
Juan Ramon Sánchez
Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
	In office; August 1, 2018 – March 4, 2024
Preceded by	Lawrence F. Stengel
Succeeded by	Mitchell S. Goldberg
Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
	Incumbent
	Assumed office ; June 24, 2004
Appointed by	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Jay Waldman
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Chester County
	In office; 1998 – June 2004
Personal details
Born	December 22, 1955 (age 68); Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, U.S.
Education	City College of New York (BA); University of Pennsylvania (JD)

Juan Ramon Sánchez (born December 22, 1955) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He served as the chief judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 2018 to 2024.

Education and career

Born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, Sánchez received a Bachelor of Arts degree from City College of New York in 1978 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1981. He was a Staff attorney of Legal Aid of Chester County, Pennsylvania, from 1981 to 1983. He was in private practice in West Chester, Pennsylvania, from 1983 to 1984, and was then an attorney for the County of Chester Public Defender's Office from 1984 to 1997. He was a judge on the Chester County Court of Common Pleas from 1998 to 2004.

Federal judicial service

On November 25, 2003, Sánchez was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania vacated by Jay Waldman. Sánchez was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 23, 2004, and received his commission on June 24, 2004.

On August 1, 2018, Sánchez became the first Latino chief judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, due to the announced retirement of Lawrence F. Stengel.^[2] Sánchez resigned from that position on March 4, 2024.

In February 2019, Sanchez found that the University of the Sciences had not breached its contractual promise of a fair process when it expelled a student accused of campus sexual assault without providing a live hearing or an opportunity to cross examine witnesses.^[3]^[4] His judgment was then reversed by the unanimous United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in May 2020.^[5]

References

^ Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Eighth Congress, First Session, Part 6
^ "New chief judge named for U.S. District Court". August 2, 2018. Archived from the original on October 31, 2019. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
^ Note, Recent Case: Third Circuit Holds Pennsylvania Law Guarantees a “Real, Live, and Adversarial Hearing”, 134 Harv. L. Rev. 2590 (2021)..
^ Doe v. Univ. of the Scis., No. 19-358 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 14, 2019).
^ Doe v. University of the Sciences, 961 F.3d 203 (3d Cir. 2020).

External links

Juan Ramon Sánchez at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

Legal offices
Preceded by Jay Waldman	Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2004–present	Incumbent
Preceded by Lawrence F. Stengel	Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2018–2024	Succeeded by Mitchell S. Goldberg