If the courthouse "belonged to the taxpayers of Dallas County", who could authorize the break in? This was a really confusing/nuanced piece of the story and I'm not sure what's correct on it.
It read it as him asserting his jurisdiction over the county, and this whole case seems to boil down to an implied conflict between the county and the state over that jurisdiction. I’m not a lawyer, but it doesn’t look like there’s a very strong mens rea component to this accusation. I imagine they’d have to prove that the accused acted negligently, supposing it is in fact true that the state didn’t have the authority to authorise the test. But then who else is also culpable? Coalfire? The state of Iowa? The particular state official involved in this engagement?
It's not remotely that simple; (I think; IANAL) there's lots of exceptions to this rule:
if the courthouse receives resources from the state; it has statewide terminals; etc. access points where criminal records can be modified or updated then it's still the states responsibility to verify the physical security.
If Eve wants to issue an arrest warrant for bob and alice; or have them "SWATTED" and locked up; changing records in a court house is a straightforward way to do that.
If this was done as part of a statewide voting system and the courthouse is a polling place then the state should have type of imminent domain; or other statewide drill then it would be included. If they participate in any of those systems then depending on the nature of the agreement, they're consent maybe implicit.
Obviously; nobody loves the idea of breaking into a courthouse at night.
I'd wager that could even extend to adjacent buildings; and I know federal investigators who request (and then intimidate & insist) that a business owner let them do xyz type operation .. but in a lot of cases; if there is a chance of collusion then they don't even ask for that permission.
I suppose that requires a warrant; so perhaps #red_team warrants issued by a higher level judge; ultimately it's a future area of legislation.