Geo Group, Inc. v. Menocal · ¶22

That difference between a merits defense and an immunity entails another: The latter, but not the former, is in its “essence” an “entitlement not to stand trial.” Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 525. Because an immunity applies irrespective of the merits, the protection it offers is not a simple finding of non-liability. Rather, the immunity ensures that the defendant need not “answer for his conduct” in court at all—that he avoids, in addition to liability, all the usual “burdens of litigation,” including a trial. Id., at 525–526. And so we typically describe the protection in just that way: as an immunity “from suit.” Id., at 526 (emphasis in original); see, e. g., Thacker v. TVA, 587 U. S. 218, 221 (2019); Jam v. Inter national Finance Corp., 586 U. S. 199, 202 (2019). A “mere defense” to liability, as we have noted, offers something different, and of lesser value. Mitchell, 472 U. S., at…

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