Joshua Thomas Lovett v. the State of Texas

In the
Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
___________________________

No. 02-24-00229-CR
___________________________

JOSHUA THOMAS LOVETT, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS

On Appeal from the 372nd District Court
Tarrant County, Texas
Trial Court No. 1774076

Before Womack, Wallach, and Walker, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Justice Wallach
MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Joshua Thomas Lovett appeals his conviction for assault on a family

member causing bodily injury with a prior conviction for assault on a family member

causing bodily injury and sentence of nine years’ incarceration and a $5,000 fine. In his

one point, Lovett argues that the trial court erred by admitting his recorded

statements made while he was in custody but without being admonished regarding his

Miranda rights.1 Because we conclude that Lovett failed to preserve this point for our

review, we will affirm.

Lovett complains that a North Richland Hills Police officer “interrogated” him

at his house on the night of the charged offense “without the benefit of apprising him

regarding his Miranda rights or the rights incorporated into Articles 38.21 and 38.22 of

the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.” 2 See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. arts. 38.21,

38.22.3 He correctly asserts that at trial, when the officer was on the witness stand, the

prosecutor asked him what Lovett had said that night, and Lovett objected that “the

1
See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966).
2
Lovett does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his
conviction, and our resolution of his only point on appeal does not require a harm
analysis. We therefore need not summarize the facts of the charged offense but will
incorporate the necessary details into our analysis.
3
Since Lovett’s trial, an amended version of Article 38.22 has gone into effect.
Act of May 19, 2023, 88th Leg., R.S., Ch. 765, §§ 2.020, 4.003, art. 38.22, 2023 Tex.
Sess. Law Serv. 1837, 1935, 1975 (to be codified at Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art.
38.22, § 9). Our analysis would be the same under either version of the statute.

2
proper predicate” had not “been laid for a custodial statement to come in.” Without

ruling on Lovett’s objection, the trial court told the parties to approach the bench.

The trial court asked if Lovett was “taken into custody that day,” and the prosecutor

responded, “At the very end of this call. This is the very initial contact.” Lovett’s

attorney argued that “he’s already been detained and patted down and appears not to

be free to leave,” but the prosecutor countered that Lovett was “not handcuffed” and

was “in his own home.” The trial court then told the prosecutor, “Why don’t you lay

that predicate and then I’ll rule.”

Back in the jury’s presence, the prosecutor asked the officer several more

questions. 4 When the prosecutor asked the officer, “What did he say?” Lovett stated,

“Objection renewed at this time, Your Honor.” The trial court overruled the

objection and allowed the officer to testify.

Lovett made no further objections until the prosecutor sought to introduce

State’s Exhibits 36 and 37, videos captured by the officer’s body camera. 5 Outside the

jury’s presence, Lovett raised hearsay and Confrontation Clause objections to State’s

Exhibit 36. The trial court sustained his hearsay objection in part but overruled his

Confrontation Clause objection, admitted a redacted version of the video, and granted

Lovett made one additional objection—“leading”—to one of the prosecutor’s
4

questions, and the trial court sustained that objection.

In his brief, Lovett characterizes State’s Exhibits 36 and 37 as his “two
5

separate interrogations.”

3
him a running objection. When the trial court asked Lovett if he had any objection to

State’s Exhibit 37, Lovett referred to his “running objection for admissibility under

38.37 [sic] earlier,” apparently referencing his previous day’s objection under Code of

Criminal Procedure 38.371,6 and then stated that he “would have nothing further in

addition to that.” The trial court overruled “that specific objection” and admitted the

video in its entirety. Lovett made no further objections to the videos.

A. Miranda and Texas Law on Voluntariness

Under Article 38.21, “A statement of an accused may be used in evidence

against him if it appears that the same was freely and voluntarily made without

compulsion or persuasion.” Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.21. A defendant may

claim that his statement was not freely and voluntarily made and thus may not be used

as evidence against him under a few different theories: (1) Texas Code of Criminal

Procedure Article 38.22, Section 6—general voluntariness; (2) Miranda, as expanded in

Article 38.22, Sections 2 and 3 (the Texas confession statute); or (3) the Due Process

Clause. Oursbourn v. State, 259 S.W.3d 159, 169 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008). Construing

6
Article 38.37 applies to evidence of extraneous offenses or acts in proceedings
in the prosecution of a defendant for certain sexual or assaultive offenses. See Tex.
Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.37, § 1. The preceding day, the State had offered
evidence of Lovett’s extraneous conduct under Article 38.371, which applies
specifically to evidence in family-violence cases. See id. art. 38.371(a). At a hearing
outside the jury’s presence, Lovett requested and received “a running objection
towards the admission of [evidence of his] drug and alcohol use and prior assault
under relevance, [Texas Rule of Evidence] 403, and improper character evidence” and
requested and received a limiting instruction. We assume without deciding that this is
the “running objection” to which Lovett referred.

4
Lovett’s brief liberally, see Tex. R. App. P. 38.1(f), 38.9, he appears to argue that his

statements to the officer that were admitted into evidence were involuntary on all

three grounds. He did not, however, object on any of these grounds at trial.

B. Preservation of Error

To preserve a complaint for our review, a party must have presented to the trial

court a timely request, objection, or motion sufficiently stating the specific grounds, if

not apparent from the context, for the desired ruling. Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a)(1);

Montelongo v. State, 623 S.W.3d 819, 822 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). An objection must be

specific concerning (a) grounds, (b) parts, (c) parties, and (d) purposes. See Tex. R.

App. P. 33.1(a)(1); Ensley v. State, No. 02-24-00188-CR, 2025 WL 1717144, at *3 (Tex.

App.—Fort Worth June 19, 2025, pet. filed) (mem. op., not designated for

publication). Further, the party must obtain an express or implicit adverse trial-court

ruling or object to the trial court’s refusal to rule. Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a)(2); Dixon v.

State, 595 S.W.3d 216, 223 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020). Most complaints, “whether

constitutional, statutory, or otherwise, are forfeited by failure to comply with

Rule 33.1(a).” Mendez v. State, 138 S.W.3d 334, 342 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004).

The complaint made on appeal must comport with the complaint made in the

trial court or the error is forfeited. Clark v. State, 365 S.W.3d 333, 339 (Tex. Crim.

App. 2012); Lovill v. State, 319 S.W.3d 687, 691–92 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (“A

complaint will not be preserved if the legal basis of the complaint raised on appeal

varies from the complaint made at trial.”); Pena v. State, 285 S.W.3d 459, 464 (Tex.

5
Crim. App. 2009) (“Whether a party’s particular complaint is preserved depends on

whether the complaint on appeal comports with the complaint made at trial.”). To

determine whether the complaint on appeal conforms to that made at trial, we

consider the context in which the complaint was made and the parties’ shared

understanding at that time. Clark, 365 S.W.3d at 339; Resendez v. State, 306 S.W.3d 308,

313 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009); Pena, 285 S.W.3d at 464.

Here, Lovett’s appellate point does not comport with any of the objections that

he made in the trial court. His initial objection to the officer’s testimony was, “I don’t

think the proper predicate has been laid for a custodial statement to come in.” The

trial court did not immediately rule on that objection, and Lovett did not object to its

refusal to rule. To preserve a complaint for appellate review, the record must reflect

that the appellant complained to the trial court and either that the trial court ruled on

the complaint—expressly or implicitly—or that the appellant objected to the trial

court’s refusal to rule. Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a)(2); Tex. R. Evid. 103(a); Dixon, 595

S.W.3d at 223–24; Hernandez v. State, 538 S.W.3d 619, 622–23 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018);

Pena v. State, 353 S.W.3d 797, 807 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011). Even if we inferred, based

on the context in which Lovett’s objection was made and the parties’ shared

understanding at that time, that when Lovett later stated, “Objection renewed at this

time,” both the State and the trial court understood him to be renewing his

“predicate” objection, Lovett never mentioned Miranda, Article 38.21, Article 38.22,

or due process. An objection preserves only the specific ground cited. Tex. R. App. P.

6
33.1(a)(1)(A); Tex. R. Evid. 103(a)(1)(B); Mosley v. State, 983 S.W.2d 249, 265 (Tex.

Crim. App. 1998) (op. on reh’g).

Lovett also never repeated his “predicate” objection. Generally, a defendant

must timely object each time the State offers objectionable evidence unless the

defendant obtains a running objection, which is an exception to the

contemporaneous-objection rule. Geuder v. State, 115 S.W.3d 11, 13 (Tex. Crim. App.

2003); Ethington v. State, 819 S.W.2d 854, 858–59 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991). Here, Lovett

asked for and received a running objection to State’s Exhibit 36—the video

containing his objected-to statement to the officer—on hearsay and confrontation

clause grounds and a separate running objection to evidence of his extraneous

offenses and acts based on multiple different rules of evidence. Additionally, when the

trial court asked him if he had any objections to State’s Exhibit 37, he alluded to “a

running objection for admissibility under [Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article]

38.37” and secured a ruling from the trial court.7 He thus preserved error on those

grounds but chose not to raise any of them on appeal. We therefore hold that the only

point that Lovett raises on appeal—that the trial court reversibly erred in admitting

7
Lovett made these objections outside the jury’s presence and therefore did not
need to repeat them when the trial court admitted the evidence even if the trial court
had not granted his requested running objections. See Tex. R. Evid. Rule 103(b)
(“When the court hears a party’s objections outside the presence of the jury and rules
that evidence is admissible, a party need not renew an objection to preserve a claim of
error for appeal.”). However, he made—and renewed—his objection to the officer’s
testimony in the presence of the jury.

7
his recorded statements made while he was in custody yet without being admonished

regarding his Miranda rights—has been forfeited, see Clark, 365 S.W.3d at 339; Lovill,

319 S.W.3d at 691–92; Resendez, 306 S.W.3d at 316–17; Ensley, 2025 WL 1717144, at

*5, 8 and we overrule it.

Having overruled Lovett’s only point, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

/s/ Mike Wallach
Mike Wallach
Justice

Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

Delivered: July 31, 2025

8
We further note the well-settled rule that “overruling an objection to evidence
will not result in reversal when other such evidence was received without objection,
either before or after the complained-of ruling.” Leday v. State, 983 S.W.2d 713, 718
(Tex. Crim. App. 1998). Here, Lovett did not continue to object when the officer
testified to what Lovett had said to him, nor did he object to the admissibility of his
statements on State’s Exhibit 36.

8