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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.
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Njoroge Kamau for Dewoe W. Smallwood.