> The question is did he personally benefit from the change made more than his usual salary?
That’s not the question — as in, it won’t be an element of any of the crimes he’s eventually charged with. The question is whether he was knowingly or recklessly involved in a scheme to defraud people.
And just generally, legal reasoning does frequently use analogies but they need to be tighter than the ones you’re using. This case isn’t much like building a faulty bridge.
I would think that in most crimes the motivation of the accused is a factor. Think about hate-crimes. They are not hate-crimes unless the person did them out of hate for the PURPOSE of hurting members of some minority.
Murder-in-first-degree means you didn't just recklessly cause the death of somebody, it means you did it intentionally, on purpose.
Was this engineer knowingly and intentionally helping to commit the crime? We don't know because we haven't seen many details or testimonies in this case. He must be assumed innocent until proven guilty. And proving him guilty must include proving he had criminal intent, Mens Rea. The court of public opinion as in Hacker News is of course a different matter.
That’s not the question — as in, it won’t be an element of any of the crimes he’s eventually charged with. The question is whether he was knowingly or recklessly involved in a scheme to defraud people.
And just generally, legal reasoning does frequently use analogies but they need to be tighter than the ones you’re using. This case isn’t much like building a faulty bridge.