Good point. Furthermore, those deaths would have probably been caused anyway, since diesel technology doesn't suddenly make 2x less emissions. Maybe fewer diesels would have been sold, so there would have been 800 deaths instead of 1200 deaths, because the drivers would have bought one running on gas, but yeah, the law isn't designed for these number games.

It is proven that he was complicit in faking emissions tests, and it is proven that those extra emissions will lead to the premature deaths 100s of people.

That’s quite simply not how the law works. To convict someone of murder, you need a direct causal link between VW’s actions (as opposed to another car company’s actions) and a particular person dying. Statistics games don’t cut it.

Thank you for the lesson, but I never said the man should be guilty of murder. I'm merely stating that since his actions lead to the death or injury of hundreds or thousands of people he should be duly penalised to dissuade future would-be law breakers.

In a case like this maybe statistics do need to play a larger role.

We call that an ex post facto law.

Right. It needs to be proved beyond all _reasonable_ doubt, not beyond _all_ doubt. It's reasonable to believe that this person committed a crime.