A trial judge must adequately consider critical documentary evidence that bears on a witness's credibility before making credit-based findings; failure to do so constitutes a palpable misuse of the trial judge's advantage and warrants appellate intervention and retrial. Where proceedings are heard together and evidence in one is evidence in the other, the trial judge must consider the evidence across both proceedings when evaluating a witness's credit. The distinction between challenging credit findings and challenging inferences from admitted facts, while fundamental, does not preclude appellate intervention where the trial judge has failed to address material documentary evidence or has reached conclusions apparently inconsistent with objectively determined circumstances.
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