Page:City of Escondido, California, et al. v. Marty Emmons.pdf/4

4 the District Court’s conclusion that “only Defendant Craig was involved in the excessive force claim” and that Emmons “fail[ed] to identify contrary evidence.” 168 F. Supp. 3d, at 1274, n. 4.

As to Officer Craig, the Ninth Circuit also erred. As we have explained many times: “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.” Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (per curiam) (slip op., at 4) (internal quotation marks omitted); see District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2018); White v. Pauly, 580 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2017) (per curiam); Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2015) (per curiam).

Under our cases, the clearly established right must be defined with specificity. “This Court has repeatedly told courts… not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality.” Kisela, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4) (internal quotation marks omitted). That is particularly important in excessive force cases, as we have explained: “Specificity is especially important in the Fourth Amendment context, where the Court has recognized that 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. Use of excessive force is an area of the law in which the result depends very much on the facts of each case, and thus police officers are entitled to qualified immunity unless existing precedent squarely governs the specific facts at issue….

“[I]t does not suffice for a court simply to state that an officer may not use unreasonable and excessive force, deny qualified immunity, and then remit the case for a trial on the question of reasonableness. An officer cannot be said to have violated a clearly