District of Columbia v. R.W. · ¶24

If, finally, the Court's decision to intervene refects disapproval of the DCCA's assessment of which particular facts to weigh and to what extent, I cannot fathom why that kind of factbound determination warranted correction by this Court. The DCCA assigned no weight to two facts—the dispatch call and the unprovoked fight. The Court does not seem to take issue with the first. For good reason: The DCCA reasonably applied our decisions explaining that an officer may not obtain reasonable suspicion by relying on the unsupported hunch of a fellow officer. See Whiteley v. Warden, Wyo. State Penitentiary, 401 U. S. 560, 568 (1971); United States v. Hensley, 469 U. S. 221, 232 (1985). The Court may be right that the second—the unprovoked fight—should have borne some rather than no weight. But if this context- specific adjustment is all the per curiam seeks to achieve, it does not merit the use…

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