214
Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment
695; see Street v. Parham, 929 F. 2d 537, 540 (CA10 1991) (describing excessive force case as one "where the determination of liability and the availability of qualified immunity depend on the same findings"). In other words, an officer who uses force that is objectively reasonable "in light of the facts and circumstances confronting [him]," Graham, 490 U. S., at 397, simultaneously meets the standard for qualified immunity, see ante, at 201, and the standard the Court set in Graham for a decision on the merits in his favor. Conversely, an officer whose conduct is objectively unreasonable under Graham should find no shelter under a sequential qualified immunity test.
Double counting "objective reasonableness," the Court appears to suggest, ante, at 200, is demanded by Anderson, which twice restated that qualified immunity shields the conduct of officialdom "across the board." 483 U. S., at 642, 645 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 821 (1982) (Brennan, J., concurring)); see also Anderson, 483 U. S., at 643 ("we have been unwilling to complicate qualified immunity analysis by making the scope or extent of immunity turn on the precise nature of various officials' duties or the precise character of the particular rights alleged to have been violated"). As I see it, however, excessive force cases are not meet for Anderson's two-part test.
Anderson presented the question whether the particular search conducted without a warrant was supported by probable cause and exigent circumstances. The answer to such a question is often far from clear.5 Law in the area is constantly evolving and, correspondingly, variously interpreted. As aptly observed by the Second Circuit, "even learned and experienced jurists have had difficulty in de-5 Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603 (1999), is a prototypical case. There, the Court accorded qualified immunity to police who permitted the media to accompany them on a search of a house. The constitutionality of the ride-along practice was unsettled at the time of the incident-in-suit in Wilson, and remained so until this Court spoke.
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