# Thomas v. State

> Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · November 9, 2016 · 505 S.W.3d 916

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9837903

## Case

- **Full name:** Jeremy THOMAS, Appellant v. the STATE of Texas
- **Court:** Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
- **Decided:** November 9, 2016
- **Citations:** 505 S.W.3d 916; 2016 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1337; 2016 WL 6609750
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Yeary
- **Judges:** Richardson, Meyers, Johnson, Alcala, Keller, Keasler, Hervey, Yeary, Newell
- **Cited by:** 193 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9837903

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that a defendant must preserve error by making a timely objection to the manner in which the trial court responds to a jury’s request to read back testimony
- holding that the appellant waived any complaints regarding the trial court’s statements made during voir dire
- stating that “[i]f a trial objection does not comport with arguments on appeal, error has not been preserved”
- holding that trial objection must comport with arguments on appeal to preserve error

## Opinion text

CONCURRING OPINION
YEARY, J.,
filed a concurring opinion.
I join the Court’s opinion, except for the subsection designated “Preservation of Error.” Majority Opinion at 923-24. I see no occasion for this Court to pass on the question of whether error was preserved in this case. The Court ultimately concludes that any error that may have been preserved was not reversible in any event because it was harmless. It therefore affirms the court of appeals’s judgment, which had affirmed the judgment of the trial court.
It is true that we have said, on any number of occasions, that issues of error preservation are systemic in the intermediate courts of appeals. See Darcy v. State, 488 S.W.3d 325, 327 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016), and cases cited therein. We have also explained that what we mean by that is that a court of appeals should never reverse a conviction without addressing any potential question of procedural default—even sua sponte, in the event that the appellee does not raise it. See id. at 327-28 , and cases cited therein.
Here, the State did argue that error was not preserved. The court of appeals disagreed, and reached the merits of Appellant’s claim, concluding that the trial court erred. Thomas v. State, 470 S.W.3d 577, 586-87 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2015). But the court of appeals went on to hold the error harmless, id., at 588 , and this Court now agrees.
The court of appeals did not reverse the conviction without inquiring into potential procedural default. It affirmed the convic *930 tion despite having concluded that error was preserved, after concluding that the error was harmless. We did not grant discretionary review to examine the court of appeals’s preservation analysis. Instead, we granted discretionary review to examine its harm analysis. We have no need to say anything about whether error was preserved in this case.
It might be different had we found it necessary to reverse the judgment of the court of appeals with respect to issue of harm. But we did not. To even speak to the. issue of error preservation in an opinion on discretionary review under these circumstances is purely gratuitous and unnecessary. It does not impact the bottom line at all.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9837903. Public record. Not legal advice.