I was thinking the scenario was as follows:
1. He was employed as the sys admin and as such had obtained the focus to be the top person responsible for protection of the network.
2. His reluctance to give up the passwords was caused by his position that those people wanting the passwords were unskilled and had proposed not-safe activities on\to the network and
so he deemed it the safest move he could have done to save himself from being responsible for any resulting damages, as well as to protect the network, not to cough them up.
3. His employer then searched for the passwords, which should have been accessible by someone else in the chain of responsibility, and received none because said employer had not
already had in place the safeguards necessary to avoid this very situation (which, ultimately, is what created the situation in the first place).
4. He then continued to refuse based upon the reasoning stated in #2, above, after speaking to (people) claiming, mostly, "principals" as reason-enough, but also that the use of the
network was not being 'denied', -so how could they charge him with denial of service, AND based upon the fact that he was doing, in every aspect of consideration, EXACTLY as he had
always done regarding his position and protection of the network, based upon the processes and procedures and safeguards in place during his entire time of employment.
5. Employer found itself in awkward, perhaps embarrassing predicament and could not, based upon the man's 'principals' (which were cause for him to be hired into the position to begin
with) force him to allow the not-safe-for-the-network access, and decided to go with what the State wanted to do, prosecute the man as an example.
6. He was arrested and charged under CA's new laws.
7. He lost.
No mention of improprieties in the actions of the court have been heard, so what is there to 'appeal'? "All" should now be 'noticed' of this possibly happening to them. All should now be prepared to 'give-up' your principals when\if it comes out that your employer is\has been slacking in its responsibilities regarding this type of situation. (which may also mean disqualifying yourself for REAL responsible jobs in the future.)
All should take note to make sure that the job you are in, and all future positions, is one where the employer IS already taking the safeguards.