Title: In re Petition of Smallwood

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-11559 
 
IN THE MATTER OF THE PETITION OF DEWOE W. SMALLWOOD. 
 
 
December 19, 2014. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.  
Commission on Judicial Conduct.  Judge. 
 
 
 
Dewoe W. Smallwood appeals from a judgment of a single 
justice of this court dismissing his petition under G. L. 
c. 211, § 3.  The case arises from a longtime dispute between 
Smallwood and his former girlfriend concerning ownership of 
certain real property.  In 1997, Smallwood's former girlfriend 
commenced a civil action against him in the Superior Court, 
apparently culminating in the sale of the property.  A final 
judgment appears to have entered in that case in 2011.  
Smallwood then commenced this action in the county court in 
2013, seeking extraordinary relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, 
§ 3.  He recounted several rulings that the Superior Court 
judges had made against him in the underlying action.  He also 
stated that, in the course of those proceedings, he had filed 
complaints with the Commission on Judicial Conduct (commission) 
against certain judges who had made those adverse rulings, but 
that the commission declined to proceed against the judges named 
therein.  We affirm the judgment of the single justice denying 
extraordinary relief in these circumstances. 
 
 
1.  As to the commission's decisions not to proceed on 
Smallwood's complaints, the single justice succinctly and 
correctly ruled that, just as there is no private right of 
action to obtain discipline of an attorney, see Matter of a 
Request for an Investigation of an Attorney, 449 Mass. 1013, 
1014 (2007), or of a court clerk, see Gorbatova v. First Ass't 
Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for the County of Suffolk, 
463 Mass. 1019, 1020 (2012), there is no private right of action 
2 
 
to obtain discipline of a judge.  The reasoning in those cases 
applies with equal force here:  although an individual may file 
a complaint with the commission and may be a witness in 
commission proceedings, he or she is not a party in the 
commission proceeding, and nothing in the commission's rules or 
elsewhere in our law authorizes an appeal (or other judicial 
review) by a private individual from any decision of the 
commission.  Cf. Matter of a Request for an Investigation of an 
Attorney, supra, quoting Binns v. Board of Bar Overseers, 369 
Mass. 975, 976 (1976); Gorbatova v. First Ass't Clerk of the 
Supreme Judicial Court for the County of Suffolk, supra. 
 
 
2.  As to Smallwood's request for review of the entire 
record of the Superior Court proceedings, the single justice was 
well within his discretion in declining to exercise the court's 
superintendence power.  "Relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, 
is extraordinary. . . . A petitioner seeking relief under the 
statute 'must "demonstrate both a substantial claim of violation 
of [his] substantive rights and error that cannot be remedied 
under the ordinary review process."'  McGuinness v. 
Commonwealth, 420 Mass. 495, 497 (1995), quoting Planned 
Parenthood League of Mass., Inc. v. Operation Rescue, 406 Mass. 
701, 706 (1990)."  Black v. Commonwealth, 459 Mass. 1003, 1003 
(2011).  Our superintendence power is not "a substitute for the 
normal appellate process or . . . an additional layer of 
appellate review after the normal process has run its course," 
Votta v. Police Dep't of Billerica, 444 Mass. 1001, 1001 (2005), 
nor should it be used to revive appellate remedies that the 
petitioner has failed to pursue.  See Foley v. Lowell Div. of 
the Dist. Court Dep't, 398 Mass. 800, 802 (1986) ("Where a 
petitioner can raise his claim in the normal course of trial and 
appeal, relief will be denied").  Here, all of Smallwood's 
claims of error in the Superior Court proceedings could have 
been raised in the ordinary appellate process.1  The single 
justice therefore did not err or abuse his discretion in 
dismissing his petition under c. 211, § 3. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
                     
 
1 The Superior Court docket indicates that Smallwood has 
filed notices of appeal at various times.  It is unclear whether 
he took the necessary additional steps pursuant to Mass. R. A. 
P. 9, as amended, 417 Mass. 1601 (1994), and Mass. R. A. P. 10, 
as amended, 430 Mass. 1605 (1999), to perfect the appeal.  The 
Superior Court docket further indicates that there was a motion 
to dismiss Smallwood's appeal for lack of prosecution and that 
the motion was allowed. 
3 
 
 
 
Njoroge Kamau for Dewoe W. Smallwood.