Opinion ID: 618266
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Claim of Factual Error.

Text: The appellant insists that the court premised its conclusion that Officer Maillet had a reasonable suspicion on an incorrect factual finding. In this regard, he says that it stretches credulity to believe that Officers Michaud and Maillet discussed Austin at all, let alone that the former gave the latter a description of Austin that differed from the description in the criminal trespass citation. Viewed from any angle, this boils down to a claim that the district court made an insupportable credibility determination. As we have said, a district court's factual findings may be rejected only if they are clearly erroneous. As long as such findings are supported by a plausible view of the evidence, they will not be overturned. Espinoza, 490 F.3d at 46. Credibility determinations are factual findings, and especially wide latitude must be accorded to them. See Ruidíaz, 529 F.3d at 32. In the case at hand, it cannot be gainsaid that Officer Michaud's successive descriptions of Austin diverge from one another. It is common ground that inconsistencies in a witness's statements can serve as a basis for an adverse credibility determination. See, e.g., United States v. Henderson, 463 F.3d 27, 34-35, 47 (1st Cir.2006). But a witness's statement need not be a letter-perfect replica of an earlier statement in order to be given credence. Gauging the effect of inconsistencies on a witness's credibility is, within wide limits, for the trier of fact, not for the court of appeals. We can easily dispatch the appellant's claim that the purported conversation between Officer Michaud and Officer Maillet never took place. The record reflects that Officer Michaud cited Austin and then proceeded to Main Street at 3:21 a.m. Officer Maillet responded to that same call. The roughly eight minutes that the officers took was ample time for the officers to have dealt with the object of the call and briefly discussed Austin's troublemaking. The district court's finding that Officer Michaud gave Officer Maillet a verbal description of Austin was, therefore, not clearly erroneous. This brings us to the appellant's claim that the description, if given at all, was not along the lines testified to by the officers. The appellant vigorously asserted the discrepancy in Officer Michaud's descriptions before the district court. The court rejected this position and found that both officers had testified truthfully as to how Officer Michaud described Austin to Officer Maillet. We see no principled basis for a claim of clear error. The variation in the two descriptions is not particularly surprising. Guessing at a stranger's height and weight is a notoriously uncertain enterprise. Moreover, exactness in recollecting what one previously may have estimated may sometimes be too much to expect. Given the speed at which events evolved, the discrepancy here is not so damning as to justify an overriding of the trial court's credibility judgment.