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Page Number: 33.0

28 

ZIGLAR v. ABBASI 

Opinion of the Court 

formed  in  their  official  capacities.    Ibid.  The  doctrine  of 
qualified immunity gives officials “breathing room to make
reasonable  but  mistaken  judgments  about  open  legal
questions.”  Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U. S. 731, 743 (2011).
The  Court’s  cases  provide  additional  instruction  to
define  and  implement  that  immunity.    Whether  qualified
immunity  can  be  invoked  turns  on  the  “objective  legal 
reasonableness”  of  the  official’s  acts.    Harlow,  supra,  at 
819.  And  reasonableness  of  official  action,  in  turn,  must 
be  “assessed  in  light  of  the  legal  rules  that  were  clearly
established at the time [the action] was taken.”  Anderson, 
supra, at 639 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also 
Mitchell,  472  U. S.,  at  528.    This  requirement—that  an
official  loses  qualified  immunity  only  for  violating  clearly 
established  law—protects  officials  accused  of  violating
“extremely abstract rights.”  Anderson, supra, at 639. 

The  Fourth  Amendment  provides  an  example  of  how 
qualified  immunity  functions  with  respect  to  abstract 
rights.  By its plain terms, the Amendment forbids unrea-
sonable  searches  and  seizures,  yet  it  may  be  difficult  for 
an  officer  to  know  whether  a  search  or  seizure  will  be 
deemed  reasonable  given  the  precise  situation  encoun-
tered.  See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 205 (2001) (“It is 
sometimes  difficult  for  an  officer  to  determine  how  the 
relevant  legal  doctrine,  here  excessive  force,  will  apply  to 
the  factual  situation  the  officer  confronts”).    For  this  rea-
son,  “[t]he  dispositive  question  is  ‘whether  the  violative
nature  of  particular  conduct  is  clearly  established.’ ”  
Mullenix  v.  Luna,  577  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2015)  ( per  curiam)
(slip op., at 5) (quoting Ashcroft, supra, at 742).

It  is  not  necessary,  of  course,  that  “the  very  action  in
question  has  previously  been  held  unlawful.”    Anderson, 
supra,  at  640.    That  is,  an  officer  might  lose  qualified
immunity  even  if  there  is  no  reported  case  “directly  on
point.”  Ashcroft,  supra,  at  741.  But  “in  the  light  of  pre-
existing  law,”  the  unlawfulness  of  the  officer’s  conduct