Whether a court may uphold a qualified immunity claim on the ground that qualified immunity had been granted in a prior case in which the "impropriety" of the government official's conduct would be "more apparent to most laypersons"—as the panel did here—or whether this Court's "clearly established" standard obligated the court of appeals to compare the facts of the case before it to the facts of other relevant precedents to determine whether the government official would have had fair notice that his conduct was unconstitutional.

Whether a court may uphold a qualified immunity claim on the ground that qualified immunity had been granted in a prior case in which the 'impropriety' of the government official's conduct would be 'more apparent to most laypersons—as the panel did here— or whether this Court's 'clearly established' standard obligated the court of appeals to compare the facts of the case before it to the facts of other relevant precedents to determine whether the government official would have had fair notice that his conduct was unconstitutional