| Yup. And "clearly established" has to be very clearly established. Several examples in https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/qualified-immunity-lega... > Jessop v. City of Fresno: The Ninth Circuit granted immunity to the officers. The court noted that while “the theft” of “personal property by police officers sworn to uphold the law” may be “morally wrong,” the officers could not be sued for the theft because the Ninth Circuit had never issued a decision specifically involving the question of “whether the theft of property covered by the terms of a search warrant, and seized pursuant to that warrant, violates the Fourth Amendment.” > Corbitt v. Vickers: ... the court went on to say that “[n]o case capable of clearly establishing the law for this case holds that a temporarily seized person—as was [the child] in this case—suffers a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights when an officer shoots at a dog—or any other object—and accidentally hits the person.” > Kelsay v. Ernst: The majority noted that there were no prior cases involving the “particular circumstances” of this case; that is, no prior cases specifically held that “a deputy was forbidden to use a takedown maneuver to arrest a suspect who ignored the deputy’s instruction to ‘get back here’ and continued to walk away from the officer.” > Allah v. Milling: The appellate court agreed that the prison guards violated Allah’s rights, specifically holding that this treatment was unlawful punishment because Allah’s treatment “cannot be said to be reasonably related to institutional security, and Defendants have identified no other legitimate governmental purpose justifying the placement.” Nevertheless, the court said the guards were entitled to immunity because there was no prior case concerning the particular disciplinary practice employed by the prison. It's basically judicial Calvinball. "Oh, established case law says you can't kill an innocent person at 6:35pm, but it's not clearly established you can't kill an innocent person at 6:36pm!" |