INTRODUCTION
T1 In December 20083, when she was ten years old, Taylor M. first accused her stepfather, Ryan Brett Robbins, of "touch[ing] her in an area where nobody has tried to touch her." The only evidence of the alleged incident was Taylor's testimony, and many factors suggested that the allegations of abuse were motivated by animus between Taylor's father and Robbins. See Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-404.1 (2008). Robbins was charged with one count of aggravated sexual abuse of Taylor. He was also charged with three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of Taylor's older sister, Whitney, who came forward with her own allegations against Robbins after hearing Taylor's. The jury convicted Robbins of abusing Taylor but acquitted him of three counts of abusing Whitney. The trial judge later expressed that he was "rather surprised with the verdict" and that there was "more to [the allegations] than just he said/she said." He queried "what do I do in a situation where ... all kinds of collateral issues ... suggest that [Taylor's] testimony may not be credible?" Nonetheless, he denied Robbins' Motion to Arrest Judgment.
{2 Robbins appealed his conviction to the court of appeals, which affirmed. It held that Taylor's testimony provided sufficient evidence for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Robbins intended to gratify his sexual desires and that the trial court could not disregard her testimony as inherently improbable. State v. Robbins,
BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
13 Taylor's mother ("Mother") and father ("Father") divorced in 1996, in part because of a brief affair between Mother and Robbins in 1992. At the time of the divorcee, the court awarded Mother primary custody of Taylor and her older sister Whitney, with Father receiving standard every-other-weekend and mid-week visitation. Two years later, when Taylor was five years old, Mother married Robbins. At some point the following year, Whitney moved in with Father, who then moved for primary custody of both girls. That petition was still pending at the time of Robbing' trial in 2004.
T4 In 2001, Father made a complaint to DCFS, alleging that Robbins was verbally and physically abusing Taylor. Before contacting Robbins or Mother, a DCFS investigator interviewed Taylor at her school where Taylor told the investigator that she had never been spanked or hit by Robbins, was never told she was not loved, and was never told anything that made her feel uncomfortable or sad. Indeed, Taylor reported that she felt comfortable and safe at home. DCFS closed the investigation, concluding that the allegations lacked merit.
11 5 Just four weeks later, Father sought an ex parte protective order from the juvenile court prohibiting any contact between Robbins and Taylor. Father alleged that Robbins physically abused Taylor daily while berating her. The petition did not mention the recent DCFS investigation, nor did it allege that any bruising had occurred as a *291 result of the physical abuse. Though the juvenile court granted the order, which required Robbins to leave his home and immediately transferred custody of Taylor from Mother to Father, Mother's legal counsel obtained judicial dissolution of the order the next day.
T6 As a result of the petition for protective order, DCFS again investigated Father's allegations of abuse, this time in more detail. As evidence of the alleged abuse, Father provided the investigator with a log that he had kept of incidents of abuse, a tape recording made by his older daughter Whitney recounting what she believed was abuse of Taylor, and a recording of a telephone call Taylor made to him. A different investigator from DCFS interviewed Taylor, who again said she felt safe at home. Taylor told the investigator that Robbins had spanked her once lightly with a book. She also told the investigator that the only person she was afraid of was her step brother, Father's stepson, who would come up behind her and hit her unexpectedly. The investigator found that Father's abuse log contained third-hand allegations not proven by the evidence and that Whitney's tape-recorded allegations had no supporting evidence. Taylor's distress in the recorded phone call appeared to be caused by the earlier DCFS investigation. The investigator noted that "[ilt appears that there has been some coaching take place" with regards to the abuse allegations. Although the investigator found that the abuse allegations were without merit, he recommended that Taylor begin counseling due to the discord between her parents.
T7 Taylor began attending regular counseling sessions in 2001, at first weekly and then monthly. In September 2008, Robbins and Mother separated as a result of Robbins' alcoholism. Prior to their separation, Taylor witnessed a loud argument between them, which "really freaked her out." Taylor told her counselor about the alleged incident of sexual abuse on December 11, 2008, over three years after the incident allegedly occurred. Shortly thereafter, Whitney came forward alleging that she too had been abused in a remarkably similar manner. Robbins was charged with four counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child under Utah Code section 76-5-404.1(8)(h) (2008).
8 Taylor's recollection of the alleged sexual abuse incident suffered from multiple inconsistencies. Taylor changed the age at which the abuse occurred from nine to seven. At the preliminary hearing, when attorneys asked why Taylor said the abuse first occurred when she was nine and then changed her story to seven, she replied that she had a hearing problem like her grandfather, a fact objectively not true. Taylor also changed the description of what she was wearing at the time of the alleged incident from fleece pants and a long sweater, to a nightgown, and then to a long nightgown that came to her ankles. The initial vague allegation Taylor reported to her counselor became much more specific after she discussed it with Whitney, who then came forward with her own similar abuse allegations. Taylor also gave more specific details of the alleged incident, elaborating that the touching lasted twenty seconds, that Robbins held his hand still for the duration, that he touched her over the top of her pajamas, and that when she slapped his hand, he left.
{9 At trial, when asked if Robbins ever spoke to her about the incident, she replied, "Not that I remember. I think that maybe once he might have said that if I ever told anyone he would do it again or he would hit me more." (Emphasis added). But later in her testimony, Taylor reported that she did not tell anyone about the abuse when it happened "[blecause I had always been told that if I told anyone about him abusing me he would abuse me more, or he would threaten to kill my dog, or something like that." When asked why she did not report this abuse to either of the DCFS investigators, she claimed that she was afraid "because somebody told me there was going to be someone hiding in the closet and listening to everything that I said." Taylor did not identify who told her that someone would be hiding in the closet. Further, the first DCFS interview took place in a room without a closet and was conducted before Robbins and Mother were informed of the allegations, so neither would have had the opportunity to *292 tell her that someone would record her conversation.
{10 In addition to the inconsistencies in Taylor's testimony surrounding the alleged incident of sexual abuse, other inconsisten-cles arose with regard to her allegations of routine physical abuse. In 2001, Taylor told the first investigator that Robbins never hit her. She told the second investigator that he once tapped her lightly with a book. But by January 2008, she told the detective that Robbins had hit her "a couple of times," and several days later she told the DCFS investigator that onee a week or so, when Robbins was drunk, he would hit her on the back with his hand or a book, leaving marks at least once. At trial, Taylor changed her story yet again, alleging that about once a week for four years Robbins would, without talking to her and without apparent provocation, come into Taylor's room, pull a book from the shelf and hit her with it for a few minutes. She testified that she did not think Robbins was ever drunk when he hit her because "when he was drinking he didn't act like that. He would just fall asleep." Though these allegations of physical abuse do not bear directly on the alleged incident of sexual abuse, they reflect the pattern of inconsistency pervading Taylor's testimony.
T11 At the three-day trial, defense attorneys highlighted the inconsistencies in Taylor's testimony and established their theory that the accusations were a result of the discord between Father and Robbins. The jury convicted Robbins of one count of aggravated sexual abuse of Taylor, but acquitted on the three counts relating to Whitney. The court denied Robbins' Motion to Arrest Judgment, stating that "it could not say that [Taylor's] testimony was inconclusive or inherently improbable to the extent that reasonable minds [the jurors] must have had to entertain a reasonable doubt.... The fact that the Court might have reached another result is not relevant to the inquiry on defendant's Motions." Robbins was sentenced to five years to life in prison.
12 The court of appeals upheld Robbins' conviction, holding that there was sufficient evidence to support his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that it did not have the discretion to reassess Taylor's testimony because it was not inherently improbable and because the suspect portions of her testimony did not go to the core of the offense. State v. Robbins,
ISSUES AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
1183 We granted certiorari to address the scope of the inherent improbability doe-trine, particularly in what instances a court may find witness testimony sufficiently improbable to disregard it when determining if sufficient evidence exists to sustain a convietion. We review the court of appeals' interpretation of the inherent improbability criteria for correctness. See Pohl, Inc. of Am. v. Webelhuth,
ANALYSIS
I. THE COURT OF APPEALS COULD DISREGARD TAYLORS INHERENTLY IMPROBABLE TESTIMONY WHEN CONSIDERING WHETHER THERE WAS ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE JURY VERDICT
{$14 "A conviction not based on substantial reliable evidence cannot stand." State v. Ramsey,
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favorable to the jury verdict." State v. Colwell,
115 "The standard for determining whether an order arresting judgment is erroneous is the same as that applied by an appellate court in determining whether a jury verdict should be set aside for insufficient evidence." Workman,
116 "[Nlotwithstanding the presumptions in favor of the jury's decision this Court still has the right to review the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict." State v. Petree,
117 Testimony is physically impossible when what the witness claims happened could not have possibly occurred. If Taylor had testified that the molestation occurred on the moon, her testimony would have been inherently improbable because it is physically impossible for that to have occurred. On the other hand, testimony is apparently false if its falsity is "apparent, without any resort to inferences or deductions." Id. (internal quotations marks omitted). The court of appeals applied a narrow definition of "apparently false," holding that it required the testimony to be "improbable by its very nature." State v. Robbins,
118 To prevent unappealable injustice, we hold that the definition of inherently improbable must include cireumstances where a witness's testimony is incredibly dubious and, as such, apparently false. Accordingly, when considering a motion to arrest judgment, a trial judge may reevaluate the jury's determination of testimony credibility in cases "where a sole witness presents inherently contradictory testimony that is equivocal or the result of coercion, and there is a complete lack of civreumstantial evidence
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of guilt." Bowles,
119 Contrary to the court of appeals' view, such a rule would not allow defendants to challenge witness testimony for "generalized concerns about a witness's credibility." Robbins,
120 This "inherent improbability" standard has been adopted by other jurisdictions, including by the court in Jowga v. Smith, where an Towa court used it to overturn a jury verdict based only on the incredible testimony of child witnesses who had motive to lie.
T 21 This court has previously established that a judge may "disregard or discount as incredible evidence that is not capable of supporting a reasonable belief" of a defendant's guilt in the context of making a decision whether to bind over a defendant. State v. Virgin,
122 In this case, the court of appeals affirmed the trial judge's holding that he could not disregard Taylor's incredibly dubious testimony in considering Robbins' motion to arrest the judgment. But the trial judge's assumption that he must credit Taylor's testimony was erroneous. Taylor's testimony, which was the sole evidence supporting Robbins' guilt, contained many inconsistencies. Taylor's denial of any abuse to two investigators, her inconsistent accounts regarding the extent of the physical abuse she suffered, her age when the abuse occurred, and what she was wearing at the time of abuse may alone be insufficient to invoke the inherent improbability exception. State v. Robbins,
123 Taylor made up a story about a hearing problem to account for the discrepancy in the age when the abuse occurred. She also reported fearing that someone in a closet eavesdropped during her conversations with the first DCFS investigator, even though the conversation took place in a room without a closet before Mother or Robbins could have told her about a potential eavesdropper. In addition, Taylor never conclusively stated who told her not to tell about the physical and sexual abuse or what the consequences would be for telling. Further, Taylor went from reporting absolutely no physical abuse in 2001 to reporting at trial that Robbins beat her with a book onee a week. At one point, she claimed Robbins was drunk when he beat her, but at trial she claimed that he was not drunk because he would usually sleep when he was drunk. Because Taylor's testimony is the sole evidence that a crime was even committed, and because no other evidence points to Robbins' guilt, these inconsistencies are sufficient to have allowed the trial judge to reevaluate Taylor's eredibility when considering the motion to arrest judgment.
124 On sufficiency of the evidence review, we normally afford weight to the trial court's denial of a motion to arrest judgment. But in this case, the trial judge, though constrained by an unduly narrow construction of the inherent improbability doctrine, was clearly troubled by the jury verdiet. In the *296 hearing on the motion to arrest judgment, the trial judge expressed his concern:
[Ilf someone said, he touched me, he said I did not, then okay, the jury believes somebody. But there's a lot more to this case than that.... There [were] former denials of any of that kind of stuff, there was all this business going on about custody.... I know from the fact from sitting here for 22 plus years, that there is nothing more emotionally driven than divorce proceedings involving children and eustody.... [There's nothing like fury that a husband has when somebody ... [has] an affair with [his] wife. Those things are serious business here.... [Wlhat do I do in a situation where there [are] all kinds of collateral issues that would suggest that [Taylor's] testimony might not be credible?
Thus, the trial court's denial of Robbins' motion to arrest judgment does not lend support to upholding the conviction.
CONCLUSION
125 Based on the trial judge's stated concerns and the clear record of inconsistencies in Taylor's testimony, and in light of the clarification of our inherent improbability standard that we announce today, we reverse the court of appeals and remand with instructions for the trial court to enter an acquittal.
Notes
. At first glance, it would appear that a magistrate's decision whether to bind a defendant over for trial is inapposite to a motion to arrest judgment after a jury has rendered a verdict. However, "the quantum of evidence necessary to support a bindover is less than that necessary to survive a directed verdict motion." State v. Clark,