Cite as: 520 U. S. 259 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
that individuals have traditionally possessed in the face of vague criminal statutes. To require something clearer than "clearly established" would, then, call for something beyond "fair warning."
This is not to say, of course, that the single warning standard points to a single level of specificity sufficient in every instance. In some circumstances, as when an earlier case expressly leaves open whether a general rule applies to the particular type of conduct at issue, a very high degree of prior factual particularity may be necessary. See, e. g., Mitchell v. Forsyth, supra, at 530-535, and n. 12. But general statements of the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning, and in other instances a general constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question, even though "the very action in question has [not] previously been held unlawful," Anderson, supra, at 640. As Judge Daughtrey noted in her dissenting opinion in this case: " 'The easiest cases don't even arise. There has never been . . . a section 1983 case accusing welfare officials of selling foster children into slavery; it does not follow that if such a case arose, the officials would be immune from damages [or criminal] liability.' " 73 F. 3d, at 1410 (quoting K. H. Through Murphy v. Morgan, 914 F. 2d 846, 851 (CA7 1990)); see also Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U. S. 104, 110 (1972) (due process requirements are not "designed to convert into a constitutional dilemma the practical difficulties in drawing criminal statutes both general enough to take into account a variety of human conduct and sufficiently specific to provide fair warning that certain kinds of conduct are prohibited"); Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97, 101 (1951) (holding that beating to obtain a confession plainly violates § 242). In sum, as with civil liability under § 1983 or Bivens, all that can usefully be said about criminal liability under § 242 is that it may be imposed for deprivation of a constitutional right if, but only if, "in the light of pre-existing law the un-
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