COURT OF APPEALS EIGHTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS EL PASO, TEXAS

IN THE MATTER OF A.A.M., A JUVENILE. § § § § § § No. 08

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- 00 185

- CV

Appeal from the
65 th District Court
of El Paso County, Texas (TC# 1200099 )

O P I N I O N
Appellant A.A.M. , a juvenile, appeal s his adjudication of delinquent conduct based on
misdemeanor assault. We affirm.
BACKGROUND On March 7, 2012, t he El Paso County Attorney’s Office filed a petit ion based on delinquent
conduct alleging that Appellant committed the offense of assault on December 15, 201 1

. At the adjudication hear ing , Paula Lerma, a teacher at Paso D el Norte School, which Appellant attended, testified that she broke up a fight after school on December 15, 2011

. According to Lerma, she
was al erted to the fight by a student. Lerma quickly went outside and observed Appellant and
another student punching and kicking the victim. Lerma told the boys to stop it, they complied ,2

and she escorted Appellant and the other boy to the office of the a ssistant p rincipal

. Yvonne Vallejo , an assistant principal at Paso D el Norte, testified that she had Appellant
write a statement while he was in her office on the day of the fight

. Vallejo obtained a written

statement from Appellant for discipline purposes. Vallejo stated that she did not tell Appellant what to write in his statement. Appellant was not promised anything for writing a statement and he was not threatened in any way. After the State moved to admit Appellant’ s wr itten statement
into evidence Appellant’s counsel objected and took Vallejo on voir dire examination

. On voir dire , Vallejo testified that she had never had a student refuse to write a statement

. S he explained that if a student chose not to write a statement, the student would be free to return to
class . However, Vallejo would still be able to take administrative action base d on her investigation without the student’s written statement. Vallejo did not recall Appellant stating that he did not want to write his statement because she g ave him the paper and he wrote a statement

. Vallejo also testified that while Appellant was in her office , Appellant was not scared of he r and he
was not denied acc ess to the restroom or water . When Appellant made his statement there was no police officer or school security officer present in the room

. Vallejo was the only person present at that time. Vallejo also obtained statements from the other two boys involv ed in the incident. At the conclusion of Vallejo’s testimony, t he State again moved for the admission of Appellant’s
written statement . At that point, Appellant’s attorney stated that he had no objection and the
statement was admitted into evidence

. Ap pellant t estified at the adjudication hearing and admitted that he threw the victim to the ground and hit the victim . Appellant denied that he kicked the victim. In regard to his written statement, Appellant testified that he did not want to write the st atement, but stated that he felt3

pressured to do so . According to Appellant, when he stopped writing , Vallejo told him to keep
writ ing what he had done

. A ppellant stated that Vallejo never told him that he could not leave Vallejo’s office until he finished his statement . Vallejo did not threaten him and no police or school security office rs were present in the room when he wrote the statement

. After the adjudication hearing, the juvenile court refe ree found that Appellant had engaged in delinquent conduct and the referee set the case for a disposition hearing

. Following the disposition hearing, Appellant was placed on probati on until his eighteenth birthday. This appeal
followed.
DISCUSSION
In a sole issue on appeal, Appellant asserts that th e juvenile court referee erred in admitting Appellant’s written statement in violation of s ection 51. 095 of the Texas Family Code. See T EX

. F AM

. C ODE A NN

. § 51.095 (West 20 08 )

. The State responds that Appellant failed to preserve

error for review.
Preservation of Error To preserve a complaint for appellate review, the record must show that the comp laint was made to the trial court by a timely request, objection, or motion that stated the grounds for the ruling that the complaining party sought from the trial court with sufficient specificity to make
the court aware of the complaint , unless the speci fic grounds were apparent from the context.
T EX

. R. A PP

. P . 33.1 ; In re E.M.R. , 55 S.W.3d 712, 716 (Tex. App.

– Corpus Christi 2001, no pet.). Additionally, to preserve error for review a defendant must obtain an adverse ruling on his objection. Ramirez v. State , 815 S.W.2d 636, 643 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991)

. In this case, Appellant did not make a specific objection. Rather, w hen the State moved to4

admit Appellant’s written statement, Appellant made a general objection and then requested to
take Vallejo on voir dire . At the conclusion of Vallejo’s voir dire examination , Appellant did not request a ruling on his prior object ion and that the State moved again to admit the written statement

as evidence . When the juvenile court referee inquired if there we re any other objections, Appellant said , “ [ n ] o objection

. ” The record reflects that Appellant never objected or move d to suppress the written statement based on section 51.095 of the Texas Family Code. See T EX

. F AM

. C ODE A NN

. § 51.095 (West 20 08 ). On appeal, Appellant argues that his attorney should have continued to object to the written statement being introduced into evidence because it was taken in violation of F amily C ode s ection
51.095. Appellant further contends that an error normally waived for failure to object may still be argued on appeal if it was fundamental and so egregious it created such harm that Appellant did not receive a fair and impartial trial. See Almanza v. State, 686 S.W. 2d 157, 171 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985). However, Appell ant provides no further argument or evidence that fundamental error occurred in this case or that he suffered egregious harm. Because Appellant did not adequa tely notify the trial court of his specific complaint, we conclude that he failed to preserve

err or
. See T EX

. R. A PP

. P . 33.1 ; E.M.R. , 55 S.W.3d at 716 (holding t he appellant waived complaint that statement should have been suppressed because it was taken in violation of section 52.02(b) of the Texas Family Code because appellant failed to adequately notify trial court of his specific complaint)

. Similarly, because Appellant failed to obtain an adverse ruling on his general objection, Appellant has also waived error. Ramirez , 815 S.W.2d at 643 (error is waived
if it is not clear from the record that the trial court made an adverse ruling on the defendant’s objection). Furthermore, we note that other witness testimony including Appellant’s at the hearing5

corroborated the facts set forth in Appellant’s written statement. Both the victim and Lerma
testified without objection that Appellant punched and kicked the victim. Similarly, Vallejo testified that Appellant admitted to grabbing the victim and that Appellant had explained that when the victim fell on the floor, Appellant kicke d and punched the victim. While Appellant denied kicking the victim, he testified that he threw the victim to the ground and intentionally made a fist and hit the victim on the arm. Appellant explained that he had intended to scare the victim
because the victim had pushed him in class. Therefore, even if the juvenile court referee erred in admitting Appellant’s written statement, any error was rendered harmless as the same evidence was provided elsewhere during the adjudication hearing without objection. See Valle v. State , 109 S.W.3d 500, 509 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) ( a n error in the admission of evidence is cured when
the same evidence comes i n elsewhere without objection) ; Leday v. State , 983 S.W.2d 713, 71 8 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998) ( it is well settled that a trial court does not reversibly err by admitting evidence over objection where the same evidence is admitted elsewhere during trial without objection ). Issue One is overruled.
CONCLUSION The trial court’s ruling is affirmed.

GUADALUPE RIVERA, Justice October 30, 2013 Before McClure, C.J., Rivera, and Rodriguez, JJ.