District of Columbia v. R.W. · ¶23

If today's decision instead refects dissatisfaction with the DCCA's comment that it “ `excis[ed]' ” certain factors from its analysis, ante, at 26–27, I do not contest that this was poor word choice, see United States v. Arvizu, 534 U. S. 266, 274 (2002) (rejecting a “divide-and-conquer analysis”). But I do not think that word choice refects a methodological error. Courts excise facts from their analyses every day. Opinion- writing is an exercise in culling the irrelevant; in application, no “totality-of-the-circumstances” test really lives up to its name. Indeed, today's per curiam necessarily omits a number of facts the Court finds insignifcant—e. g., the make and model of the car, the precise location of the stop, the color of R. W.'s friends' clothing. Though it does not say so, the Court “excises” those facts, too. It does not thereby misapply the Fourth Amendment.

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