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We also do not think that relaxation of Saucier’s mandate is likely to result in a proliferation of damages claims against local governments. Compare Brief for Nat. Assn. of Counties et al., as Amici Curiae 29, 30 (“[T]o the extent that a rule permitting courts to bypass the merits makes it more difficult for civil rights plaintiffs to pursue novel claims, they will have greater reason to press custom, policy, or practice [damages] claims against local governments”). It is hard to see how the Saucier procedure could have a significant effect on a civil rights plaintiff’s decision whether to seek damages only from a municipal employee or also from the municipality. Whether the Saucier procedure is mandatory or discretionary, the plaintiff will presumably take into account the possibility that the individual defendant will be held to have qualified immunity, and presumably the plaintiff will seek damages from the municipality as well as the individual employee if the benefits of doing so (any increase in the likelihood of recovery or collection of damages) outweigh the litigation costs.

Nor do we think that allowing the lower courts to exercise their discretion with respect to the Saucier procedure will spawn “a new cottage industry of litigation … over the standards for deciding whether to reach the merits in a given case.” Brief for Nat. Assn. of Counties et al. as Amici Curiae 29, 30. It does not appear that such a “cottage industry” developed prior to Saucier, and we see no reason why our decision today should produce such a result.
IV
Turning to the conduct of the officers here, we hold that petitioners are entitled to qualified immunity because the entry did not violate clearly established law. An officer conducting a search is entitled to qualified immunity where clearly established law does not show that the search violated the Fourth Amendment . See Anderson, 483 U. S., at 641. This inquiry turns on the “objective legal reasonableness of the action, assessed in light of the legal rules that were clearly established at the time it was taken.” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 614 (1999) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U. S. 730, 739 (2002) (“[Q]ualified immunity operates to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
When the entry at issue here occurred in 2002, the “consent-once-removed” doctrine had gained acceptance in the lower courts. This doctrine had been considered by three Federal Courts of Appeals and two State Supreme Courts starting in the early 1980’s. See, e.g., United States v. Diaz, 814 F. 2d 454, 459 (CA7), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 857 (1987) ; United States v. Bramble, 103 F. 3d 1475 (CA9 1996); United States v. Pollard, 215 F. 3d 643, 648–649 (CA6), cert. denied, 531 U. S. 999 (2000) ; State v. Henry, 133 N. J. 104, 627 A. 2d 125 (1993); State v. Johnston, 184 Wis. 2d 794, 518 N. W. 2d 759 (1994). It had been accepted by every one of those courts. Moreover, the Seventh Circuit had approved the doctrine’s application to cases involving consensual entries by private citizens acting as confidential informants. See United States v. Paul, 808 F. 2d, 645, 648 (1986). The Sixth Circuit reached the same conclusion after the events that gave rise to respondent’s suit, see United States v. Yoon, 398 F. 3d 802, 806–808, cert. denied, 546 U. S. 977 (2005) , and prior to the Tenth Circuit’s decision in the present case, no court of appeals had issued a contrary decision.
The officers here were entitled to rely on these cases, even though their own Federal Circuit had not yet ruled on “consent-once-removed” entries. The principles of qualified immunity shield an officer from personal liability when an officer reasonably believes that his or her conduct complies with the law. Police officers are entitled to rely on existing lower court cases without facing personal liability for their actions. In Wilson, we explained that a Circuit split on the relevant issue had developed after the events that gave rise to suit and concluded that “[i]f judges thus disagree on a constitutional question, it is unfair to subject police to money damages for picking the losing side of the controversy.” 526 U. S., at 618. Likewise, here, where the divergence of views on the consent-once-removed doctrine was created by the decision of the Court of Appeals in this case, it is improper to subject petitioners to money damages for their conduct.
Because the unlawfulness of the officers’ conduct in this case was not clearly established, petitioners are entitled to qualified immunity. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.




See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800 , and n. 30 (1982) (noting that the Court’s decisions equate the qualified immunity of state officials sued under 42 U. S. C. §1983 with the immunity of federal officers sued directly under the Constitution). In Bunting, the Court of Appeals followed the Saucier two-step protocol and first held that the Virginia Military Institute’s use of the word “God” in a “supper roll call” ceremony violated the Establishment Clause, but then granted the defendants qualified immunity because the law was not clearly established at the relevant time. Mellen v. Bunting, 327 F. 3d 355, 365–376 (CA4 2003), cert. denied, 541 U. S. 1019 (2004) . Although they had a judgment in their favor below, the defendants asked this Court to review the adverse constitutional ruling. Dissenting from the denial of certiorari, Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, criticized “a perceived procedural tangle of the Court’s own making.” 541 U. S., at 1022. The “tangle” arose from the Court’s “ ‘settled refusal’ to entertain an appeal by a party on an issue as to which he prevailed” below, a practice that insulates from review adverse merits decisions that are “locked inside” favorable qualified immunity rulings. Id., at 1023, 1024.
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