536 U.S. 730 (2002)

HOPE
v.
PELZER et al.

No. 01-309.

United States Supreme Court.

Argued April 17, 2002. Decided June 27, 2002. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

*731 *732 Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 748.

Craig T. Jones argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were James Mendelsohn, J. Richard Cohen, and Rhonda Brownstein.

Austin C. Schlick argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorneys General McCallum and Boyd, Deputy Solicitor General Clement, Barbara L. Herwig, and Richard A. Olderman.

Nathan A. Forrester, Solicitor General of Alabama, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Bill Pryor, Attorney General, Alyce S. Robertson, Deputy Solicitor General, and Margaret Fleming and Ellen LeonardThomas, Assistant Attorneys General.

Gene C. Schaerr argued the cause for the State of Missouri et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief were Jeremiah W. Nixon, Attorney General of Missouri, and James R. Layton, State Solicitor, Robert H. Kono, Acting Attorney General of Guam, and Carter G. Phillips, joined by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Earl I. Anzai of Hawaii, Steve Carter of Indiana, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, D. Mi- *733 chael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Sheldon White house of Rhode Island, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, and Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia.^[*]

Justice Stevens, delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit concluded that petitioner Larry Hope, a former prison inmate at the Limestone Prison in Alabama, was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment when prison guards twice handcuffed him to a hitching post to sanction him for disruptive conduct. Because that conclusion was not supported by earlier cases with "materially similar" facts, the court held that the respondents were entitled to qualified immunity, and therefore affirmed summary judgment in their favor. We granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals' qualified immunity holding comports with our decision in United States v. Lanier, 520 U. S. 259 (1997).

I

In 1995, Alabama was the only State that followed the practice of chaining inmates to one another in work squads. It was also the only State that handcuffed prisoners to "hitching posts" if they either refused to work or otherwise disrupted work squads.^[1] Hope was handcuffed to a hitching *734 post on two occasions. On May 11, 1995, while Hope was working in a chain gang near an interstate highway, he got into an argument with another inmate. Both men were taken back to the Limestone prison and handcuffed to a hitching post. Hope was released two hours later, after the guard captain determined that the altercation had been caused by the other inmate. During his two hours on the post, Hope was offered drinking water and a bathroom break every 15 minutes, and his responses to these offers were recorded on an activity log. Because he was only slightly taller than the hitching post, his arms were above shoulder height and grew tired from being handcuffed so high. Whenever he tried moving his arms to improve his circulation, the handcuffs cut into his wrists, causing pain and discomfort.

On June 7, 1995, Hope was punished more severely. He took a nap during the morning bus ride to the chaingang's worksite, and when it arrived he was less than prompt in responding to an order to get off the bus. An exchange of vulgar remarks led to a wrestling match with a guard. Four other guards intervened, subdued Hope, handcuffed him, placed him in leg irons and transported him back to the prison where he was put on the hitching post. The guards made him take off his shirt, and he remained shirtless all *735 day while the sun burned his skin.^[2] He remained attached to the post for approximately seven hours. During this 7hour period, he was given water only once or twice and was given no bathroom breaks.^[3] At one point, a guard taunted Hope about his thirst. According to Hope's affidavit: "[The guard] first gave water to some dogs, then brought the water cooler closer to me, removed its lid, and kicked the cooler over, spilling the water onto the ground." App. 11.

Hope filed suit under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama against three guards involved in the May incident, one of whom also handcuffed him to the hitching post in June. The case was referred to a Magistrate Judge who treated the responsive affidavits filed by the defendants as a motion for summary judgment. Without deciding whether "the very act of placing him on a restraining bar for a period of hours as a form of punishment" had violated the Eighth Amendment, the Magistrate concluded that the guards were entitled to qualified immunity.^[4] Supplemental App. to Pet. for Cert. 21. The District Court agreed, and entered judgment for respondents.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. 240 F. 3d 975 (2001). Before reaching the *736 qualified immunity issue, however, it answered the constitutional question that the District Court had bypassed. The court found that the use of the hitching post for punitive purposes violated the Eighth Amendment. Nevertheless, applying Circuit precedent concerning qualified immunity, the court stated that "`the federal law by which the government official's conduct should be evaluated must be preexisting, obvious and mandatory,' " and established, not by "`abstractions,' " but by cases that are "`materially similar' " to the facts in the case in front of us." Id., at 981. The court then concluded that the facts in the two precedents on which Hope primarily relied—Ort v. White, 813 F. 2d 318 (CA11 1987), and Gates v. Collier, 501 F. 2d 1291 (CA5 1974)—"[t]hough analogous," were not "`materially similar' to Hope's situation.' " 240 F. 3d, at 981. We granted certiorari to review the Eleventh Circuit's qualified immunity holding. 534 U. S. 1073 (2002).

II

The threshold inquiry a court must undertake in a qualified immunity analysis is whether plaintiff's allegations, if true, establish a constitutional violation. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 201 (2001). The Court of Appeals held that "the policy and practice of cuffing an inmate to a hitching post or similar stationary object for a period of time that surpasses that necessary to quell a threat or restore order is a violation of the Eighth Amendment." 240 F. 3d, at 980— 981. The court rejected respondents' submission that Hope could have ended his shackling by offering to return to work, finding instead that the purpose of the practice was punitive,^[5] and that the circumstances of his confinement created *737 a substantial risk of harm of which the officers were aware. Moreover, the court relied on Circuit precedent condemning similar practices^[6] and the results of a United States Department of Justice (DOJ) report that found Alabama's systematic use of the hitching post to be improper corporal punishment. ^[7] We agree with the Court of Appeals that the attachment of Hope to the hitching post under the circumstances alleged in this case violated the Eighth Amendment.

"`[T]he unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain . . . constitutes cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.' " Whitley v. Albers, 475 U. S. 312, 319 (1986) (some internal quotation marks omitted). We have said that "[a]mong `unnecessary and wanton' inflictions of pain are those that are `totally without penological justification.' " Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U. S. 337, 346 (1981). In making this determination in the context of prison conditions, *738 we must ascertain whether the officials involved acted with "deliberate indifference" to the inmates' health or safety. Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S. 1, 8 (1992). We may infer the existence of this subjective state of mind from the fact that the risk of harm is obvious. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U. S. 825, 842 (1994).

As the facts are alleged by Hope, the Eighth Amendment violation is obvious. Any safety concerns had long since abated by the time petitioner was handcuffed to the hitching post because Hope had already been subdued, handcuffed, placed in leg irons, and transported back to the prison. He was separated from his work squad and not given the opportunity to return to work. Despite the clear lack of an emergency situation, the respondents knowingly subjected him to a substantial risk of physical harm, to unnecessary pain caused by the handcuffs and the restricted position of confinement for a 7-hour period, to unnecessary exposure to the heat of the sun, to prolonged thirst and taunting, and to a deprivation of bathroom breaks that created a risk of particular discomfort and humiliation.^[8] The use of the hitching post under these circumstances violated the "basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment[, which] is nothing less than the dignity of man." Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 100 (1958). This punitive treatment amounts to gratuitous infliction of "wanton and unnecessary" pain that our precedent clearly prohibits.

*739 III

Despite their participation in this constitutionally impermissible conduct, respondents may nevertheless be shielded from liability for civil damages if their actions did not violate "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982). In assessing whether the Eighth Amendment violation here met the Harlow test, the Court of Appeals required that the facts of previous cases be "`materially similar' to Hope's situation." 240 F. 3d, at 981. This rigid gloss on the qualified immunity standard, though supported by Circuit precedent,^[9] is not consistent with our cases.

As we have explained, qualified immunity operates "to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful." Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S., at 206. For a constitutional right to be clearly established, its contours "must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, see Mitchell [v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511,] 535, n. 12; but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U. S. 635, 640 (1987).

Officers sued in a civil action for damages under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 have the same right to fair notice as do defendants charged with the criminal offense defined in 18 U. S. C. § 242. Section 242 makes it a crime for a state official to act "willfully" and under color of law to deprive a person of rights protected by the Constitution. In United States v. Lanier, 520 U. S. 259 (1997), we held that the defendant was entitled *740 to "fair warning" that his conduct deprived his victim of a constitutional right, and that the standard for determining the adequacy of that warning was the same as the standard for determining whether a constitutional right was "clearly established" in civil litigation under § 1983.^[10]

In Lanier, the Court of Appeals had held that the indictment did not charge an offense under § 242 because the constitutional right allegedly violated had not been identified in any earlier case involving a factual situation "`fundamentally similar' " to the one in issue. Id., at 263 (citing United States v. Lanier, 73 F. 3d 1380, 1393 (CA6 1996)). The Court of Appeals had assumed that the defendant in a criminal case was entitled to a degree of notice "`substantially higher than the "clearly established" standard used to judge qualified immunity' " in civil cases under § 1983. 520 U. S., at 263. We reversed, explaining that the "fair warning" requirement is identical under § 242 and the qualified immunity standard. We pointed out that we had "upheld convictions under § 241 or § 242 despite notable factual distinctions between the precedents relied on and the cases then before the Court, so long as the prior decisions gave reasonable warning that the conduct then at issue violated constitutional rights." Id., at 269. We explained:

"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 *741 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. 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." Id., at 270-271 (citation omitted).

Our opinion in Lanier thus makes clear that officials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances. Indeed, in Lanier, we expressly rejected a requirement that previous cases be "fundamentally similar." Although earlier cases involving "fundamentally similar" facts can provide especially strong support for a conclusion that the law is clearly established, they are not necessary to such a finding. The same is true of cases with "materially similar" facts. Accordingly, pursuant to Lanier, the salient question that the Court of Appeals ought to have asked is whether the state of the law in 1995 gave respondents fair warning that their alleged treatment of Hope was unconstitutional. It is to this question that we now turn.

IV

The use of the hitching post as alleged by Hope "unnecessar[ily] and wanton[ly] inflicted pain," Whitley, 475 U. S., at 319 (internal quotation marks omitted), and thus was a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Part II, supra. Arguably, the violation was so obvious that our own Eighth Amendment cases gave respondents fair warning that their conduct violated the Constitution. Regardless, in light of binding Eleventh Circuit precedent, an Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) regulation, and a DOJ report *742 informing the ADOC of the constitutional infirmity in its use of the hitching post, we readily conclude that the respondents' conduct violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow, 457 U. S., at 818.

Cases decided by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit before 1981 are binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit today. See Bonner v. Prichard, 661 F. 2d 1206 (CA11 1981). In one of those cases, decided in 1974, the Court of Appeals reviewed a District Court decision finding a number of constitutional violations in the administration of Mississippi's prisons. Gates v. Collier, 501 F. 2d 1291. That opinion squarely held that several of those "forms of corporal punishment run afoul of the Eighth Amendment [and] offend contemporary concepts of decency, human dignity, and precepts of civilization which we profess to possess." Id., at 1306. Among those forms of punishment were "handcuffing inmates to the fence and to cells for long periods of time, . . . and forcing inmates to stand, sit or lie on crates, stumps, or otherwise maintain awkward positions for prolonged periods." Ibid. The fact that Gates found several forms of punishment impermissible does not, as respondents suggest, lessen the force of its holding with respect to handcuffing inmates to cells or fences for long periods of time. Nor, for the purpose of providing fair notice to reasonable officers administering punishment for past misconduct, is there any reason to draw a constitutional distinction between a practice of handcuffing an inmate to a fence for prolonged periods and handcuffing him to a hitching post for seven hours. The Court of Appeals' conclusion to the contrary exposes the danger of a rigid, over reliance on factual similarity. As the Government submits in its brief amicus curiae: "No reasonable officer could have concluded that the constitutional holding of Gates turned on the fact that inmates were handcuffed to fences or the bars of cells, rather than a specially designed metal bar designated for shackling. If anything, the use of *743 a designated hitching post highlights the constitutional problem." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22. In light of Gates, the unlawfulness of the alleged conduct should have been apparent to respondents.

The reasoning, though not the holding, in a case decided by the Eleventh Circuit in 1987 sent the same message to reasonable officers in that Circuit. In Ort v. White, 813 F. 2d 318, the Court of Appeals held that an officer's temporary denials of drinking water to an inmate who repeatedly refused to do his share of the work assigned to a farm squad "should not be viewed as punishment in the strict sense, but instead as necessary coercive measures undertaken to obtain compliance with a reasonable prison rule, i. e., the requirement that all inmates perform their assigned farm squad duties." Id., at 325. "The officer's clear motive was to encourage Ort to comply with the rules and to do the work required of him, after which he would receive the water like everyone else." Ibid. The court cautioned, however, that a constitutional violation might have been present "if later, once back at the prison, officials had decided to deny [Ort] water as punishment for his refusal to work." Id., at 326. So too would a violation have occurred if the method of coercion reached a point of severity such that the recalcitrant prisoner's health was at risk. Ibid. Although the facts of the case are not identical, Ort' s premise is that "physical abuse directed at [a] prisoner after he terminate[s] his resistance to authority would constitute an actionable eighth amendment violation." Id., at 324. This premise has clear applicability in this case. Hope was not restrained at the worksite until he was willing to return to work. Rather, he was removed back to the prison and placed under conditions that threatened his health. Ort therefore gave fair warning to respondents that their conduct crossed the line of what is constitutionally permissible.

Relevant to the question whether Ort provided fair warning to respondents that their conduct violated the Constitution *744 is a regulation promulgated by ADOC in 1993.^[11] The regulation authorizes the use of the hitching post when an inmate refuses to work or is otherwise disruptive to a work squad. It provides that an activity log should be completed for each such inmate, detailing his responses to offers of water and bathroom breaks every 15 minutes. Such a log was completed and maintained for petitioner's shackling in May, but the record contains no such log for the 7-hour shackling in June and the record indicates that the periodic offers contemplated by the regulation were not made. App. 43-48. The regulation also states that an inmate "will be allowed to join his assigned squad" whenever he tells an officer "that he is ready to go to work." Id., at 103. The findings in Austin v. Hopper, 15 F. Supp. 2d 1210, 1244-1246 (MD Ala. 1998), as well as the record in this case, indicate that this important provision of the regulation was frequently ignored by corrections officers. If regularly observed, a requirement that would effectively give the inmate the keys to the handcuffs that attached him to the hitching post would have made this case more analogous to the practice upheld in Ort, rather than the kind of punishment Ort described as impermissible. A course of conduct that tends to prove that the requirement was merely a sham, or that respondents could ignore it with impunity, provides equally strong support for the conclusion that they were fully aware of the wrongful character of their conduct.

Respondents violated clearly established law. Our conclusion that "a reasonable person would have known," Harlow, 457 U. S., at 818, of the violation is buttressed by the fact that the DOJ specifically advised the ADOC of the unconstitutionality of its practices before the incidents in this case took place. The DOJ had conducted a study in 1994 of Alabama's use of the hitching post. 240 F. 3d, at 979. *745 Among other findings, the DOJ report noted that ADOC's officers consistently failed to comply with the policy of immediately releasing any inmate from the hitching post who agrees to return to work. The DOJ concluded that the systematic use of the restraining bar in Alabama constituted improper corporal punishment. Ibid. Accordingly, the DOJ advised the ADOC to cease use of the hitching post in order to meet constitutional standards. The ADOC replied that it thought the post could permissibly be used "`to preserve prison security and discipline.' " Ibid. In response, the DOJ informed the ADOC that, "`[a]lthough an emergency situation may warrant drastic action by corrections staff, our experts found that the "rail" is being used systematically as an improper punishment for relatively trivial offenses. Therefore, we have concluded that the use of the "rail" is without penological justification.' " Ibid. Although there is nothing in the record indicating that the DOJ's views were communicated to respondents, this exchange lends support to the view that reasonable officials in the ADOC should have realized that the use of the hitching post under the circumstances alleged by Hope violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The obvious cruelty inherent in this practice should have provided respondents with some notice that their alleged conduct violated Hope's constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Hope was treated in a way antithetical to human dignity—he was hitched to a post for an extended period of time in a position that was painful, and under circumstances that were both degrading and dangerous. This wanton treatment was not done of necessity, but as punishment for prior conduct. Even if there might once have been a question regarding the constitutionality of this practice, the Eleventh Circuit precedent of Gates and Ort, as well as the DOJ report condemning the practice, put a reasonable officer on notice that the use of the hitching *746 post under the circumstances alleged by Hope was unlawful. The "fair and clear warning," Lanier, 520 U. S., at 271, that these cases provided was sufficient to preclude the defense of qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage.

V

In response to Justice Thomas' thoughtful dissent, we make the following three observations. The first is that in granting certiorari to review the summary judgment entered in favor of the officers, we did not take any question about the sufficiency of pleadings and affidavits to raise a genuine possibility that the three named officers were responsible for the punitive acts of shackling alleged. All questions raised by petitioner (the plaintiff against whom summary judgment was entered) go to the application of the standard that no immunity is available for official acts when "it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted." Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S., at 202. The officers' brief in opposition to certiorari likewise addressed only the legal standard of what is clearly established. The resulting focus in the case was the Eleventh Circuit's position that a violation is not clearly established unless it is the subject of a prior case of liability on facts "`materially similar' " to those charged. 240 F. 3d, at 981. We did not take, and do not pass upon, the questions whether or to what extent the three named officers may be held responsible for the acts charged, if proved. Nothing in our decision forecloses any defense other than qualified immunity on the ground relied upon by the Court of Appeals.

Second, we may address the immunity question on the assumption that the act of field discipline charged on each occasion was handcuffing Hope to a hitching post for an extended period apparently to inflict gratuitous pain or discomfort, with no justification in threatened harm or a continuing refusal to work. Id., at 980 (on neither occasion did Hope "refus[e] to work or encourag[e] other inmates to refuse to *747 work"). The Court of Appeals clearly held the act of cuffing petitioner to the hitching post itself to suffice as an unconstitutional act: "We find that cuffing an inmate to a hitching post for a period of time extending past that required to address an immediate danger or threat is a violation of the Eighth Amendment." Ibid. Although the court continued that "[t]his violation is exacerbated by the lack of proper clothing, water, or bathroom breaks," ibid., this embellishment was not the basis of its decision, and our own decision adequately rests on the same assumption that sufficed for the Court of Appeals.

Third, in applying the objective immunity test of what a reasonable officer would understand, the significance of federal judicial precedent is a function in part of the Judiciary's structure. The unreported District Court opinions cited by the officers are distinguishable on their own terms.^[12] But regardless, they would be no match for the Circuit precedents^[13] in Gates v. Collier, 501 F. 2d, at 1306, which held that "handcuffing inmates to the fence and to cells for long periods of time" was unconstitutional, and Ort v. White, 813 F. 2d, at 326, which suggested that it would be unconstitutional to inflict gratuitous pain on an inmate (by refusing him water) when punishment was unnecessary to enforce *748 on-the-spot discipline. The vitality of Gates and Ort could not seriously be questioned in light of our own decisions holding that gratuitous infliction of punishment is unconstitutional, even in the prison context, see supra, at 737 (citing Whitley v. Albers, 475 U. S., at 319; Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U. S., at 346).

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Thomas, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia join, dissenting.

The Court today subjects three prison guards to suit based on facts not alleged, law not clearly established, and its own subjective views on appropriate methods of prison discipline. Qualified immunity jurisprudence has been turned on its head.

I

Petitioner Larry Hope did not file this action against the State of Alabama. Nor did he sue all of the Alabama prison guards responsible for looking after him in the two instances that he was handcuffed to the restraining bar.^[1] He chose instead to maintain this lawsuit against only three prison guards: Officer Gene McClaran, Sergeant Mark Pelzer, and Lieutenant Jim Gates. See 240 F. 3d 975, 977, n. 2 (CA11 2001).^[2] It is therefore strange that in the course of deciding that none of the three respondents is entitled to qualified *749 immunity the Court does not even bother to mention the nature of petitioner's specific allegations against McClaran, Pelzer, and Gates. The omission is both glaring and telling. When one examines the alleged conduct of the prison guards who are parties to this action, as opposed to the alleged conduct of other guards, who are not parties to this action, petitioner's case becomes far less compelling.

The Court's imprecise account of the facts requires that the specific nature of petitioner's allegations against the three respondents be recounted. Petitioner claims that: (1) on May 11, 1995, Officer McClaran ordered that petitioner be affixed to the restraining bar;^[3] (2) Sergeant Pelzer, on that same date, affixed him to the restraining bar;^[4] and (3) Lieutenant Gates, on May 11 and June 7, 1995, affixed petitioner to the bar.^[5] That is the sum and substance of petitioner's allegations against respondents.^[6]

With respect to McClaran and Pelzer, petitioner has never alleged that they participated in the June 7 incident that so *750 appalls the Court.^[7] And with respect to Lieutenant Gates, petitioner has never alleged that Gates either participated in or was responsible for any of the June 7 events recounted by the Court other than attaching petitioner to the bar. Petitioner has never contended that Gates looked after or otherwise supervised him while he was on the bar. See Second Affidavit of Larry Hope (ND Ala.), Record, Doc. No. 32. Nor has petitioner ever claimed that Gates was responsible for keeping him on the bar for seven hours, removing his shirt,^[8] denying him water, taunting him about his thirst, or giving water to dogs in petitioner's plain view. See ibid. The relevance of these facts, repeatedly referenced by the Court during the course of its legal analysis, see, e. g., ante, at 738, 744, therefore escapes me.

Then there are the events referenced in the Court's opinion that cannot even arguably be gleaned from the record. For instance, while the Court claims that on June 7 petitioner "was given no bathroom breaks," ante, at 735, during his time on the bar, petitioner has never alleged that Gates or any other prison guard refused him bathroom breaks on that date. See Second Affidavit of Larry Hope, Record, Doc. No. 32. As a matter of fact, the District Court expressly found below that petitioner "was not denied restroom *751 breaks." Supplemental App. to Pet. for Cert. 2. In addition, photographs taken of petitioner attached to the restraining bar on June 7 show him wearing a t-shirt, revealing at a minimum that petitioner was not shirtless "all day." See Second Affidavit of Larry Hope, Exhs. 3-5, Record, Doc. No. 32; id., at 5 (verifying that the photographs were "taken while [he] was on the hitching post on June 7").

Once one understands petitioner's specific allegations against respondents, the Eighth Amendment violation in this case is far from "obvious." Ante, at 738. What is "obvious," however, is that the Court's explanation of how respondents violated the Eighth Amendment is woefully incomplete. The Court merely recounts petitioner's allegations regarding the events of June 7 and concludes that "[t]he use of the hitching post under these circumstances violated the `basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment[,] [which] is nothing less than the dignity of man.' " Ibid. (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 100 (1958)). The Court, however, fails to explain how respondents McClaran and Pelzer violated the Eighth Amendment, given that they had no involvement whatsoever in affixing petitioner to the restraining bar on June 7. The Court's reasoning as applied to respondent Gates is similarly inadequate since petitioner has never alleged that Gates bore any responsibility for most of the conduct on June 7 that supposedly renders the Eighth Amendment violation "obvious."^[9]

*752 II

Once petitioner's allegations regarding respondents' conduct are separated from his other grievances and the mistreatment invented by the Court, this case presents one simple question: Was it clearly established in 1995 that the mere act of cuffing petitioner to the restraining bar (or, in the case of Officer McClaran, ordering petitioner's attachment to the restraining bar) violated the Eighth Amendment? The answer to this question is also simple: Obviously not.

A

The Court correctly states that respondents are entitled to qualified immunity unless their conduct violated "`clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' " Ante, at 739 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982)). But the Court then fails either to discuss or to apply the following important principles. Qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335, 341 (1986). If "it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted," then qualified immunity does not apply. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 202 (2001). But if, on the other hand, "officers of reasonable competence could disagree on th[e] issue, immunity should be recognized." Malley, supra, at 341.

In evaluating whether it was clearly established in 1995 that respondents' conduct violated the Eighth Amendment, the Court of Appeals properly noted that "[i]t is important to analyze the facts in [the prior cases relied upon by petitioner where courts found Eighth Amendment violations], *753 and determine if they are materially similar to the facts in the case in front of us." 240 F. 3d, at 981 (internal quotation marks omitted). The right not to suffer from "cruel and unusual punishments," U. S. Const., Amdt. 8, is an extremely abstract and general right. In the vast majority of cases, the text of the Eighth Amendment does not, in and of itself, give a government official sufficient notice of the clearly established Eighth Amendment law applicable to a particular situation.^[10] Rather, one must look to case law to see whether "the right the official is alleged to have violated [has] been `clearly established' in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, s