Court Opinion

ID: 9761889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:58:04.30915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:01.727215
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The sequence of events in this ease preceding appellant’s alleged objection supporting his first point of error indicates that the trial court was having a hard time understanding the testimony of the defendant and believed the jury was similarly confused. Accordingly, the trial court asked the jury whether or not they were having difficulty understanding the statements made by the defendant from the witness stand. A juror answered in the affirmative, and specifically mentioned the testimony regarding the source of the gun. The trial court then inquired as to whether this testimony was' elicited during examination by defense counsel or the State. When the juror responded that defense counsel had been asking the questions on this subject, the trial court logically asked the defendant’s attorney if he wanted to clear up the matter. Then appellant’s counsel made the statement upon which point of error number one is predicated. The precise statement made by appellant’s counsel in response to the trial court’s offer to allow him to clear up the juror’s question regarding the issue of the source of the weapon is as follows: ‘Well, I don’t know that that’s proper for me to do; but we can certainly find it on the record, Judge, that — .”
The majority opinion reaches the merits of appellant’s first point of error based on the *842conclusion that the above-quoted statement by appellant’s counsel was sufficient to preserve for appellate review the following asserted trial error: the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the jurors to question appellant from the witness stand. The majority finds that the objection was sufficient to apprise the court and the prosecutor that he objected to the whole procedure as improper. I believe the majority has misconstrued the intent of the statement made by defense counsel.
At the point in the trial at which the alleged objection was lodged, the trial court was attempting to allow defense counsel to clear up an issue about which a juror was confused. The trial court, following a statement by a juror that the defendant’s testimony about the source of the pistol was confusing, stated — -“Do you want to clear that up?”, (emphasis added) Without more, there might be some question of whether the pronoun “you” referred to the juror who voiced some confusion, or to the defense lawyer. However, after the alleged objection by defense counsel, followed by another statement by the trial court about the jury’s apparent difficulty understanding the defendant’s testimony and the court’s desire to make the evidence as clear as possible for the jury, defense counsel immediately began asking the defendant about how he obtained the pistol. Appellant’s counsel commenced this redirect examination without making any other statements. I believe it is manifest from these events that defense counsel understood that the trial court was addressing him when it posed the question, do you want to clear this up? Otherwise, the trial court would have interrupted defense counsel and allowed the juror who had expressed some confusion to ask a clarifying question. In view of the sequence of events which occurred at trial, the alleged “objection” seized on by the majority was, when read in proper context, a statement by defense counsel to the effect that any clarification regarding the defendant’s testimony was the State’s job on cross-examination. Thus, I conclude that appellant’s counsel was not objecting to the procedure of allowing jurors to ask questions — because that process had not yet commenced — but was merely voicing concern about being coerced to clear up an issue which, depending upon his trial strategy, he might want to be somewhat less than clear when the jury retired to deliberate about the ease. This interpretation is bolstered by the absence of the word “object” in defense counsel’s statement, and the fact that defense counsel had objected to various cross-examination questions from the prosecutor leading up to the statement at issue here. Indeed, after defense counsel and the State concluded their examination of the defendant in the “clearing up” phase initiated by the trial court, the judge then permitted a juror to ask a question. However, there was no objection by appellant at that time.
In order to preserve a complaint for appellate review, a party must have presented to the trial court a timely request, objection or motion stating the specific grounds for the ruling he desired the court to make if the specific grounds were not apparent from the context. Tex.R.App. P. 52(a). Thus, as a general rule, appellate courts will not consider an alleged error that was not first called to the attention of the trial judge. See I expert v. State, 908 S.W.2d 217, 221 (Tex.Crim. App.1995). The requirement of an objection is fundamentally sound and necessary for the orderly presentation and resolution of alleged trial errors and appellate issues. See id. The record of the trial proceeding here is, in my view, very clear that defense counsel’s statement was not an objection addressing the issue of juror questions, which occurred later, and that no objection was made when members of the jury did start asking questions. Accordingly, because he failed to make a timely objection stating the specific grounds for the ruling he desired the court to make, I believe appellant waived his first point of error.
Moreover, even if the statement made by defense counsel were deemed to constitute an objection, there are two reasons why it was inadequate to preserve the issue of the propriety of questions from the jury for appellate review. First, the objection was not specific. Rule 52(a) requires that an objection be specific. A specific objection is required to inform the trial judge of the basis of the objection and afford him or her an *843opportunity to rule on it, and to afford opposing counsel an opportunity to remove the objection or supply other testimony. See Maynard v. State, 685 S.W.2d 60, 64-65 (Tex.Crim.App.1985). I do not find the alleged objection to be specific, and it certainly did riot constitute an objection, as the majority holds, to the whole procedure of allowing jurors to ask questions.1 Indeed, as noted above, the alleged objection by defense counsel at issue here questioned not whether any particular trial procedure was proper, but rather questioned whether some unspecified procedure was proper for defense counsel to do. It would take a clairvoyant judge to infer from the brief statement from defense counsel that he was making an objection to the process of allowing questions from jurors when the alleged objection contained none of the following words: “object to the process”, “unlawful procedure”, or “questions from jurors”. When an objection is not specific, it fails to preserve the question for review. See Garcia v. State, 573 S.W.2d 12,16 (Tex.Crim. App.1978).
Second, appellant failed to obtain a ruling on his alleged objection. The second requirement under Rule 52(a) for preserving a complaint for appellate review is that the complaining party must obtain a ruling on the party’s objection. This requirement has been carried forward into the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, as amended effective September 1, 1997. See Tex.R.App. P.33.1(a)(2). Error is preserved for review only when the defendant receives an adverse ruling on his objection. Ramirez v. State, 815 S.W.2d 636, 643 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). The ruling must be conclusory; that is, it must be clear from the record the trial judge in fact overruled the defendant’s objection or otherwise error is waived. See id. Here, the trial court’s response to the defendant’s alleged objection consisted of statements that the court was trying to resolve the meaning of portions of the defendant’s testimony, assist the reporter in getting an intelligible record, and clear up some confusion shared by the court and, apparently the jury, before the witness left the stand. In short, the trial court did not perceive the statement of defense counsel as an objection and, accordingly, did not make any statements in response that can in any manner be deemed an adverse ruling as required by Rule 52 and Ramirez. Accordingly, even if we accept the majority’s hypothesis that the abbreviated statement by defense counsel was in fact an objection, error was nevertheless waived because appellant failed to obtain an adverse ruling thereon.
Because appellant’s first point of error does not have the necessary predicate required by Rule 52 in the record of the trial to preserve the asserted error for appellate review, I would overrule that point of error.

. The majority opinion relies to a large extent on Morrison v. State in reaching its decision to sustain appellant's first point of error. 845 S.W.2d 882 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). That case is distinguishable on its facts because there appellant made a timely objection to the process of allowing jurors to ask questions on the basis it was “not authorized by law", and just as importantly, appellant obtained a ruling on his objection. See 845 S.W.2d at 883, n. 1; see also concurring opinion by Clinton, J., 845 S.W.2d at 894, n. 12. While Morrison stands for the proposition that juror questioning is always unlawful, it did not say that it could be raised for the first time on appeal.