Cite as: 580 U. S. ____ (2017) 1 

Per Curiam 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

RAY WHITE, ET AL. v. DANIEL T. PAULY, AS PERSONAL 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF SAMUEL 

PAULY, DECEASED ET AL. 

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED 

STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
 

No. 16–67. Decided January 9, 2017

 PER CURIAM. 

This case addresses the situation of an officer who— 

having arrived late at an ongoing police action and having 

witnessed shots being fired by one of several individuals 

in a house surrounded by other officers—shoots and kills

an armed occupant of the house without first giving a

warning.

According to the District Court and the Court of Appeals, the record, when viewed in the light most favorable 

to respondents, shows the following. Respondent Daniel

Pauly was involved in a road-rage incident on a highway 

near Santa Fe, New Mexico. 814 F. 3d 1060, 1064–1065 

(CA10 2016). It was in the evening, and it was raining. 

The two women involved called 911 to report Daniel as a 

“‘drunk driver’” who was “‘swerving all crazy.’” Id., at 

1065. The women then followed Daniel down the highway, close behind him and with their bright lights on.

Daniel, feeling threatened, pulled his truck over at an offramp to confront them. After a brief, nonviolent encounter, Daniel drove a short distance to a secluded house 

where he lived with his brother, Samuel Pauly. 

Sometime between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., Officer Kevin

Truesdale was dispatched to respond to the women’s 911 

call. Truesdale, arriving after Daniel had already left the

scene, interviewed the two women at the off-ramp. The 

women told Truesdale that Daniel had been driving recklessly and gave his license plate number to Truesdale. 
 

 

2 WHITE v. PAULY 

Per Curiam 

The state police dispatcher identified the plate as being 

registered to the Pauly brothers’ address.

After the women left, Officer Truesdale was joined at 

the off-ramp by Officers Ray White and Michael Mariscal. 

The three agreed there was insufficient probable cause to 

arrest Daniel. Still, the officers decided to speak with 

Daniel to (1) get his side of the story, (2) “‘make sure 

nothing else happened,’” and (3) find out if he was intoxicated. Id., at 1065. The officers split up. White stayed at 

the off-ramp in case Daniel returned. Truesdale and 

Mariscal drove in separate patrol cars to the Pauly brothers’ address, less than a half mile away. Record 215. 

Neither officer turned on his flashing lights. 

When Officers Mariscal and Truesdale arrived at the 

address they had received from the dispatcher, they found

two different houses, the first with no lights on inside and

a second one behind it on a hill. Id., at 217, 246. Lights

were on in the second one. The officers parked their cars 

near the first house. They examined a vehicle parked near

that house but did not find Daniel’s truck. Id., at 310. 

Officers Mariscal and Truesdale noticed the lights on in

the second house and approached it in a covert manner to 

maintain officer safety. Both used their flashlights in an

intermittent manner. Truesdale alone turned on his 

flashlight once they got close to the house’s front door. 

Upon reaching the house, the officers found Daniel’s

pickup truck and spotted two men moving around inside 

the residence. Truesdale and Mariscal radioed White, who 

left the off-ramp to join them.

At approximately 11 p.m., the Pauly brothers became

aware of the officers’ presence and yelled out “‘Who are 

you?’” and “‘What do you want?’” 814 F. 3d, at 1066. In 

response, Officers Mariscal and Truesdale laughed and 

responded: “‘Hey, (expletive), we got you surrounded. 

Come out or we’re coming in.’” Ibid. Truesdale shouted 

once: “‘Open the door, State Police, open the door.’” Ibid. 
 

 

 

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Per Curiam 

Mariscal also yelled: “‘Open the door, open the door.’” 

Ibid. 

The Pauly brothers heard someone yelling, “‘We’re

coming in. We’re coming in.’” Ibid. Neither Samuel nor 

Daniel heard the officers identify themselves as state 

police. Record 81–82. The brothers armed themselves, 

Samuel with a handgun and Daniel with a shotgun. One 

of the brothers yelled at the police officers that “‘We have 

guns.’” 814 F. 3d, at 1066. The officers saw someone run 

to the back of the house, so Officer Truesdale positioned 

himself behind the house and shouted “‘Open the door, 

come outside.’” Ibid. 

Officer White had parked at the first house and was

walking up to its front door when he heard shouting from 

the second house. He half-jogged, half-walked to the

Paulys’ house, arriving “just as one of the brothers said: 

‘We have guns.’” Ibid.; see also Civ. No. 12–1311 (D NM,

Feb. 5, 2014), App. to Pet. for Cert. 75–78. When White 

heard that statement, he drew his gun and took cover 

behind a stone wall 50 feet from the front of the house. 

Officer Mariscal took cover behind a pickup truck.

Just “a few seconds” after the “We have guns” statement, Daniel stepped part way out of the back door and 

fired two shotgun blasts while screaming loudly. 814 

F. 3d, at 1066–1067. A few seconds after those shots, 

Samuel opened the front window and pointed a handgun 

in Officer White’s direction. Officer Mariscal fired immediately at Samuel but missed. “‘Four to five seconds’” 

later, White shot and killed Samuel. Id., at 1067. 

The District Court denied the officers’ motions for summary judgment, and the facts are viewed in the light most 

favorable to the Paulys. Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U. S. ___, 

___, n. (2015) (per curiam) (slip op., at 2, n.). Because this 

case concerns the defense of qualified immunity, however, 

the Court considers only the facts that were knowable to

the defendant officers. Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U. S. 
 

4 WHITE v. PAULY 

Per Curiam 

___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 9). 

Samuel’s estate and Daniel filed suit against, inter alia, 

Officers Mariscal, Truesdale, and White. One of the 

claims was that the officers were liable under Rev. Stat. 

§1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983, for violating Samuel’s Fourth

Amendment right to be free from excessive force. All three 

officers moved for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. White in particular argued that the Pauly 

brothers could not show that White’s use of force violated the Fourth Amendment and, regardless, that Samuel’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from deadly 

force under the circumstances of this case was not clearly 

established. 

The District Court denied qualified immunity. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

affirmed. As to Officers Mariscal and Truesdale, the court 

held that “[a]ccepting as true plaintiffs’ version of the 

facts, a reasonable person in the officers’ position should 

have understood their conduct would cause Samuel and 

Daniel Pauly to defend their home and could result in the 

commission of deadly force against Samuel Pauly by Officer White.” 814 F. 3d, at 1076. The panel majority

analyzed Officer White’s claim separately from the other 

officers because “Officer White did not participate in the 

events leading up to the armed confrontation, nor was he

there to hear the other officers ordering the brothers to

‘Come out or we’re coming in.’” Ibid. Despite the fact that

“Officer White . . . arrived late on the scene and heard only 

‘We have guns’ . . . before taking cover behind a stone

wall,” the majority held that a jury could have concluded

that White’s use of deadly force was not reasonable. Id., 

at 1077, 1082. The majority also decided that this rule—

that a reasonable officer in White’s position would believe

that a warning was required despite the threat of serious 

harm—was clearly established at the time of Samuel’s 

death. The Court of Appeals’ ruling relied on general 
 

Cite as: 580 U. S. ____ (2017) 5 

Per Curiam 

statements from this Court’s case law that (1) “the reasonableness of an officer’s use of force depends, in part, on

whether the officer was in danger at the precise moment

that he used force” and (2) “if the suspect threatens the

officer with a weapon[,] deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if[,] where feasible, some 

warning has been given.” Id., at 1083 (citing, inter alia, 

Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985), and Graham v. 

Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989); emphasis deleted; internal 

quotation marks and alterations omitted). The court 

concluded that a reasonable officer in White’s position

would have known that, since the Paulys could not have

shot him unless he moved from his position behind a stone

wall, he could not have used deadly force without first 

warning Samuel Pauly to drop his weapon. 

Judge Moritz dissented, contending that the “majority 

impermissibly second-guesses” Officer White’s quick

choice to use deadly force. 814 F. 3d, at 1084. Judge

Moritz explained that the majority also erred by defining 

the clearly established law at too high a level of generality,

in contravention of this Court’s precedent. 

The officers petitioned for rehearing en banc, which 6 of

the 12 judges on the Court of Appeals voted to grant. In a 

dissent from denial of rehearing, Judge Hartz noted that 

he was “unaware of any clearly established law that suggests . . . that an officer . . . who faces an occupant pointing

a firearm in his direction must refrain from firing his

weapon but, rather, must identify himself and shout a

warning while pinned down, kneeling behind a rock wall.” 

817 F. 3d 715, 718 (CA10 2016). Judge Hartz expressed 

his hope that “the Supreme Court can clarify the governing law.” Id., at 719. 

The officers petitioned for certiorari. The petition is now

granted, and the judgment is vacated: Officer White did

not violate clearly established law on the record described 

by the Court of Appeals panel. 
 

6 WHITE v. PAULY 

Per Curiam 

Qualified immunity attaches when an official’s conduct 

“‘does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have

known.’ ” Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., 

at 4–5). While this Court’s case law “‘do[es] not require a

case directly on point’” for a right to be clearly established,

“‘existing precedent must have placed the statutory or 

constitutional question beyond debate.’” Id., at ___ (slip

op., at 5). In other words, immunity protects “‘all but the

plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the 

law.’” Ibid. 

In the last five years, this Court has issued a number of 

opinions reversing federal courts in qualified immunity 

cases. See, e.g., City and County of San Francisco v. 

Sheehan, 575 U. S. ___, ___, n. 3 (2015) (slip op., at 10, n.3) 

(collecting cases). The Court has found this necessary

both because qualified immunity is important to “‘society

as a whole,’” ibid., and because as “‘an immunity from

suit,’” qualified immunity “‘is effectively lost if a case is

erroneously permitted to go to trial,’” Pearson v. Callahan, 

555 U. S. 223, 231 (2009).

Today, it is again necessary to reiterate the longstanding principle that “clearly established law” should not be 

defined “at a high level of generality.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 

563 U. S. 731, 742 (2011). As this Court explained decades ago, the clearly established law must be “particularized” to the facts of the case. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 

U. S. 635, 640 (1987). Otherwise, “[p]laintiffs would be

able to convert the rule of qualified immunity . . . into a

rule of virtually unqualified liability simply by alleging

violation of extremely abstract rights.” Id., at 639. 

The panel majority misunderstood the “clearly established” analysis: It failed to identify a case where an officer acting under similar circumstances as Officer White 

was held to have violated the Fourth Amendment. Instead, the majority relied on Graham, Garner, and their 
 

 

 

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Per Curiam 

Court of Appeals progeny, which—as noted above—lay out 

excessive-force principles at only a general level. Of 

course, “general statements of the law are not inherently

incapable of giving fair and clear warning” to officers, 

United States v. Lanier, 520 U. S. 259, 271 (1997), but “in

the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be

apparent,” Anderson v. Creighton, supra, at 640. For that 

reason, we have held that Garner and Graham do not 

by themselves create clearly established law outside 

“an obvious case.” Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U. S. 194, 

199 (2004) (per curiam); see also Plumhoff v. Rickard, 

572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 13) (emphasizing that Garner and Graham “are ‘cast at a high level of 

generality’”). 

This is not a case where it is obvious that there was a 

violation of clearly established law under Garner and 

Graham. Of note, the majority did not conclude that 

White’s conduct—such as his failure to shout a warning—

constituted a run-of-the-mill Fourth Amendment violation. 

Indeed, it recognized that “this case presents a unique set

of facts and circumstances” in light of White’s late arrival 

on the scene. 814 F. 3d, at 1077. This alone should have 

been an important indication to the majority that White’s 

conduct did not violate a “clearly established” right.

Clearly established federal law does not prohibit a reasonable officer who arrives late to an ongoing police action in

circumstances like this from assuming that proper procedures, such as officer identification, have already been

followed. No settled Fourth Amendment principle requires that officer to second-guess the earlier steps already taken by his or her fellow officers in instances like

the one White confronted here. 

On the record described by the Court of Appeals, Officer

White did not violate clearly established law. The Court 

notes, however, that respondents contend Officer White

arrived on the scene only two minutes after Officers 
 

8 WHITE v. PAULY 

Per Curiam 

Truesdale and Mariscal and more than three minutes 

before Daniel’s shots were fired. On the assumption that 

the conduct of Officers Truesdale and Mariscal did not 

adequately alert the Paulys that they were police officers, 

respondents suggest that a reasonable jury could infer 

that White witnessed the other officers’ deficient performance and should have realized that corrective action was 

necessary before using deadly force. Brief in Opposition

11, 22, n. 5. This Court expresses no position on this

potential alternative ground for affirmance, as it appears

that neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals

panel addressed it. The Court also expresses no opinion

on the question whether this ground was properly preserved or whether—in light of this Court’s holding today—

Officers Truesdale and Mariscal are entitled to qualified 

immunity.

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for certiorari is 

granted; the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated;

and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

It is so ordered. 
 

 

Cite as: 580 U. S. ____ (2017) 1 

GINSBURG, J., concurring 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

RAY WHITE, ET AL. v. DANIEL T. PAULY, AS PERSONAL 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF SAMUEL 

PAULY, DECEASED ET AL. 

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED 

STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
 

No. 16–67. Decided January 9, 2017

 JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring. 

I join the Court’s opinion on the understanding that it

does not foreclose the denial of summary judgment to

Officers Truesdale and Mariscal. See 814 F. 3d 1060, 

1068, 1073, 1074 (CA10 2016) (Court of Appeals emphasized, repeatedly, that fact disputes exist on question 

whether Truesdale and Mariscal “adequately identified 

themselves” as police officers before shouting “Come out or

we’re coming in” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Further, as to Officer White, the Court, as I comprehend

its opinion, leaves open the propriety of denying summary 

judgment based on fact disputes over when Officer White

arrived at the scene, what he may have witnessed, and 

whether he had adequate time to identify himself and 

order Samuel Pauly to drop his weapon before Officer 

White shot Pauly. Compare id., at 1080, with ante, at 8. 

See also Civ. No. 12–1311 (D NM, Feb. 5, 2014), pp. 7, and 

n. 5, 9, App. to Pet. for Cert. 75–76, and n. 5, 77 (suggesting that Officer White may have been on the scene when

Officers Truesdale and Mariscal threatened to invade the 

Pauly home).