Court Opinion

ID: 9497862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:02:01.455161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:27.967881
License: Public Domain

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge,
Concurring.
Although I am pleased to join the opinion of the Court in all respects, I wish to set forth my own view that there is a distinction between review of narrative or historical facts and review of plausibility determinations.
The IJ here decided that the Petitioner’s testimony was credible in the sense that nothing he observed cast doubt on the believability of the testimony. Specifically, the IJ stated that he did not “detect any special clues from the respondent’s manner and tone of voice” which could form the basis for his credibility determination. (Op. of the IJ at 8.) In the context of immigration cases, we will not disturb credibility determinations so long as they are supported by substantial evidence. *397Similarly, we accept narrative or historical facts found by a district judge unless upon review we decide that they are clearly erroneous.3 See Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 574-576, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (“When findings are based on determinations regarding the credibility of witnesses, Rule 52(a) [Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] demands even greater deference to the trial court’s findings; for only the trial judge can be aware of the variations in demeanor and tone of voice that bear so heavily on the listener’s understanding of and belief in what is said. See Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 88 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985).”)
But the issue before us is not the findings of narrative or historical facts.
Judge Rendell explains clearly how the IJ makes four findings of implausibility. Each finding starts with the narrative or historical facts but then moves from these narrative or historical facts to inferences which are “not logically compelled by the record or by reason or common sense.” (Court Op. at 22.) And here I believe that Judge Rendell was right on the nose.
Elsewhere, I have explained that an inference is a process in which one proposition (a conclusion) is arrived at and affirmed on the basis of one or more other propositions, which were accepted as the starting point of the process.4 This may be defined as a mental process in which a thinker passes from the apprehension of something given, the datum, to a conclusion related in a certain way to the datum and accepted only because the datum has been accepted.
It is a process where the thinker passes from one proposition to another that is connected with the former in some way. But, for the passage to be valid, it must be made according to the laws of logic that permit a reasonable movement from one proposition to another. Inference, then, is any passing from knowledge to new knowledge. The passage cannot be mere speculation, intuition or guessing.
The key to a logical inference is the reasonable probability that the conclusion flows from the evidentiary datum because of past experiences in human affairs.
Where an administrative judge draws an inference of plausibility or implausibility, he or she steps outside the realm of finding narrative or historical facts. Here I go a little further than Judge Becker, concurring in Abdulrahman v. Ashcroft, 330 F.3d 587, 600 (3d Cir.2003) (concluding that certain findings of implausibility are just “barely” in “the realm of fact finding”). This is because the concept of plausibility, by definition, is something that is added to naked facts. It takes place in the mind and is modified by individual bias. Thus, characterizing a statement as plausible is to conclude that it is “reasonable or probable (though speculative), apparently acceptable or trustworthy (sometimes with the implication of mere appearance).” Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 2238 (5th ed.2002).
The process at a hearing or court trial must be parsed. Testimony is presented. *398The fact-finder decides to credit or reject it. If credited, it becomes a part of the findings of fact. When the testimony is credited and becomes a fact,5 as here, a reviewing court is as competent as an immigration judge to draw logical inferences from those facts. In evaluating plausibility, these are inferences of reasonableness, probability, acceptability and trustworthiness to be drawn from naked facts. Or, as the logicians would put it, to the same extent as a fact-finder, a reviewing court may exercise the mental process, in which a thinker passes from the apprehension of something given, the datum (facts found by the fact finder), to a conclusion (plausibility vel non) related in a certain way to the datum and accepted only because the datum has been accepted.6
Thus, determining plausibility vel non is a different breed of cat than evaluating credibility.
When the Court in Anderson and Wainwright speak of an appellate court’s deference to a fact-finder’s evaluation of credibility, I like to think that it’s for the same reasons that a reviewing court allocates the competence of exercising discretion to trial tribunals. In my view, no one has explained why we do this as well as Professor Maurice Rosenberg, late of Columbia Law School, in Judicial Discretion of the Trial Court, Viewed from Above, 22 Syracuse L.Rev. 635, 660-661 (1971). A trial judge has “the superiority of their nether position.” Rosenberg said:
It is not that they know more than their loftier brothers and sisters; rather the trial judge sees more and senses more. In the dialogue between the appellate judges and trial judges, the former often seem to be saying: “You
were there. We do not think we would have done what you did, but we were not present and we may be unaware of significant matters, for the record does not adequately convey to us all that went on at the trial. Therefore, we defer to you.”7
But determining plausibility or implausibility is neither finding facts nor exercising discretion. Instead, it’s a process that adds a patina to bare facts. And from our loftier perch we are in as good a position as the trial judge to decide if it was O.K. to do just that.

. Over thirty years ago we defined clearly erroneous as follows: We accept the factual determination of the judge as a fact-finder unless that determination “either (1) is completely devoid of minimum evidentiary support displaying some hue of credibility, or (2) bears no rational relationship to the supportive evidentiary data.” Krasnov v. Dinan, 465 F.2d 1298, 1302 (3d Cir.1972).

. Ruggero J. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers: A Guide to Clear Legal Thinking 26-27 (3d ed.1997).

.I am reminded of the story of the three baseball umpires describing how they call balls and strikes.
The first said, "I call 'em as I see 'em.”
The second said, "I call 'em as they are.”
The third said, "They ain’t nothing 'til I call 'em!”
So it is with testimony at a hearing. They ain’t facts until the fact finder calls them that.

. There may be exceptions that are not present here. Where the IJ relies on his or her expert knowledge of general country conditions to draw inferences of plausibility, it may be that these inferences are worthy of deference.

. I have paraphrased his language. The author wrote in an era when it was proper to use the pronoun "he” in a universal sense.