Severity
peekay4, good thing I couldn't assess interest charges on borrowing my words. I was imprecise.
The most severe sanction to which reference was made, or within context of the argument by underfire, was termination of employment. But I left the door open to criminal prosecution being understood as within the question as I wrote it.
I believe there is some body of legal research (academic, mostly) on the impact of criminal prosecutions (and even criminal investigations) on safety investigations and, while it is not something I have read closely or thoroughly, I think the quite dominant view aligns closely with your litany of examples.
But termination of employment, as the most severe sanction in this incident -- seems far-fetched even to think about any possibility of a prosecution or criminal inquest here. So, are there examples in your lexicon of employment termination, as opposed to some milder sanction, impeding either safety investigation or implementation of any recommended system modifications?