California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Treggs, 171 Cal.App.2d 537, 341 P.2d 342 (Cal. App. 1959):
Appellant next characterizes the testimony of the officers as 'contrived and fabricated'. Since no charge of perjury by the witnesses against appellant is presented by the record, the question is not properly before us (People v. Martin, 128 Cal.App.2d 361, 364, 275 P.2d 635).
What appellant is apparently seeking is for us to retry the case. This we cannot do. The question of credibility of witnesses and apparent inconsistencies between the statements of witnesses are all within the province of the duly constituted arbiters of the facts, and unless testimony can be said to be inherently improbable, an appellate tribunal will not interfere with a jury's determination of the credibility of witnesses where the evidence is in conflict (People v. Newland, supra, 15 Cal.2d at page 681, 104 P.2d at page 779). In the instant case, the jury was entitled to believe the testimony of the officers and to reject that of appellant if they conscientiously felt warranted so to do, and as well, to determine the intrinsic value of testimony of identification. The determination of the jury was also fortified by the action of the trial judge in denying a new trial.
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