Opinion ID: 2585223
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Credibility of Delores Delacruz-Washington

Text: The Wassermans dispute the trial court's finding that Delacruz's testimony was not credible. The trial court found that Delacruz's testimony was inconsistent in significant ways with the consensus of the other witnesses, that Delacruz felt that the police had previously harassed her and her family, and that Delacruz had been employed as a legal secretary by the Wassermans' counsel. Accordingly, the trial court gave her testimony little weight. The trial court expressly stated the reasons that it questioned Delacruz's credibility. It listed six portions of Delacruz's testimony that were inconsistent with almost every other witnesses' account. For example, Delacruz testified that the police grabbed Wasserman after he walked down an aisle towards the back of the store and stopped to look at a product on the shelf. This conflicts with the consensus of the other witnesses, including Wasserman, who agreed that the police grabbed Wasserman while he was jogging across the front of the store toward the photo-sound department. Because the trial court is in a unique position to assess the credibility of any witness, and because its findings on the credibility of Delacruz are not internally contradictory, the trial court did not commit a clear error.