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Opinion of the Court
lawfulness [under the Constitution is] apparent," Anderson, supra, at 640. Where it is, the constitutional requirement of fair warning is satisfied.
Because the Court of Appeals used the wrong gauge in deciding whether prior judicial decisions gave fair warning that respondent's actions violated constitutional rights, we vacate the judgment and remand the case for application of the proper standard.7
It is so ordered.
7 We also leave consideration of other issues that may remain open to the Court of Appeals on remand. Several of the arguments tendered by respondent here are, however, plainly without merit and need not be left open. First, Lanier's contention that Screws excluded rights protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from the ambit of § 242 is contradicted by the language of Screws itself as well as later cases. See Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 100, 106 (1945); United States v. Price, 383 U. S., at 789, and n. 2, 793 (§ 242 is enforcement legislation enacted under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment and encompasses violations of rights guaranteed under the Due Process Clause). Second, although DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U. S. 189 (1989), generally limits the constitutional duty of officials to protect against assault by private parties to cases where the victim is in custody, DeShaney does not hold, as respondent maintains, that there is no constitutional right to be free from assault committed by state officials themselves outside of a custodial setting. Third, contrary to respondent's claim, Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 394 (1989), does not hold that all constitutional claims relating to physically abusive government conduct must arise under either the Fourth or Eighth Amendments; rather, Graham simply requires that if a constitutional claim is covered by a specific constitutional provision, such as the Fourth or Eighth Amendment, the claim must be analyzed under the standard appropriate to that specific provision, not under the rubric of substantive due process.
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