276
Opinion of the Court
slowing down, stiffening of posture, and failure to acknowledge a sighted law enforcement officer might well be un-remarkable in one instance (such as a busy San Francisco highway) while quite unusual in another (such as a remote portion of rural southeastern Arizona). Stoddard was entitled to make an assessment of the situation in light of his specialized training and familiarity with the customs of the area's inhabitants. See Ornelas, supra, at 699. To the extent that a totality of the circumstances approach may render appellate review less circumscribed by precedent than otherwise, it is the nature of the totality rule.
In another instance, the Court of Appeals chose to dismiss entirely the children's waving on grounds that odd conduct by children was all too common to be probative in a particular case. See 232 F. 3d, at 1249 ("If every odd act engaged in by one's children . . . could contribute to a finding of reasonable suspicion, the vast majority of American parents might be stopped regularly within a block of their homes"). Yet this case did not involve simply any odd act by children. At the suppression hearing, Stoddard testified about the children's waving several times, and the record suggests that he physically demonstrated it as well.2 The District Court Judge, who saw and heard Stoddard, then characterized the waving as "methodical," "mechanical," "abnormal," and "certainly . . . a fact that is odd and would lead a reasonable officer to wonder why they are doing this." App. to Pet. for Cert. 25a. Though the issue of this case does not turn on the children's idiosyncratic actions, the Court of Appeals should not have casually rejected this factor in light of the District Court's superior access to the evidence and the well-recognized inability of reviewing courts to reconstruct what happened in the courtroom.
2 At one point during the hearing, Stoddard testified that "[the children's waving] wasn't in a normal pattern. It looked like they were instructed to do so. They kind of stuck their hands up and began waving to me like this." App. 35.
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