Page 61 - TPA Journal May - June 2018

qualified immunity under §1983 unless (1) they We have stressed that the specificity of the rule
violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, is especially important in the Fourth
and (2) the unlawfulness of their conduct was Amendment context. Probable cause turn[s] on
clearly established at the time. Clearly the assessment of probabilities in particular
established means that, at the time of the officer s factual contexts and cannot be reduced to a neat
conduct, the law was sufficiently clear that set of legal rules. It is incapable of precise
every reason-able official would understand that definition or quantification into percentages.
what he is doing is unlawful. In other words, Given its imprecise nature, officers will often find
existing law must have placed the constitutionality it difficult to know how the general standard of
of the officer s conduct beyond debate. This probable cause applies in the precise situation
demanding standard protects all but the plainly encountered. Thus, we have stressed the need to
incompetent or those who knowingly violate the identify a case where an officer acting under
law. To be clearly established, a legal principle similar circumstances . . . was held to have
must have a sufficiently clear foundation in then- violated the Fourth Amendment. While there
existing precedent. The rule must be settled does not have to be a case directly on point,
law, which means it is dictated by controlling existing precedent must place the lawfulness of
authority or a robust consensus of cases of the particular arrest beyond debate. Of course,
persuasive authority, . It is not enough that the there can be the rare obvious case, where the
rule is suggested by then-existing precedent. The unlawfulness of the officer s conduct is
precedent must be clear enough that every sufficiently clear even though existing precedent
reasonable official would interpret it to establish does not address similar circumstances. But a
the particular rule the plaintiff seeks to apply. body of relevant case law is usually necessary to
Otherwise, the rule is not one that every clearly establish the answer with respect to
reasonable official would know. probable cause.

The clearly established standard also requires Under these principles, we readily conclude that
that the legal principle clearly prohibit the the officers here were entitled to qualified
officer s conduct in the particular circumstances immunity. We start by defining the circumstances
before him. The rules contours must be so well with which [the officers] w[ere] confronted. The
defined that it is clear to a reasonable officer that officers found a group of people in a house that the
his conduct was unlawful in the situation he neighbors had identified as vacant, that appeared
confronted. We have repeatedly stressed that to be vacant, and that the partygoers were treating
courts must not define clearly established law at as vacant. The group scattered, and some hid, at
a high level of generality, since doing so avoids the sight of law enforcement. Their explanations
the crucial question whether the official acted for being at the house were full of holes. The
reasonably in the particular circumstances that he source of their claimed invitation admitted that
or she faced. ). A rule is too general if the she had no right to be in the house, and the owner
unlawfulness of the officer s conduct does not confirmed that fact.
follow immediately from the conclusion that [the
Even assuming the officers lacked actual probable
rule] was firmly established. In the context of a
cause to arrest the partygoers, the officers are
warrantless arrest, the rule must obviously resolve
entitled to qualified immunity because they
whether the circumstances with which [the
reasonably but mistakenly conclude[d] that
particular officer] was confronted . . . constitute[d]
probable cause [wa]s present.
probable cause.

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