There is nothing in the NCAA by laws for dealing with covering up of crimes committed by the staff that dont involve violations of amateur status so this was bound to happen given the number of powerful Penn State alums ready to support legal action. If there was a coverup of a crime committed by a state employee then the state should come in to investigate not the NCAA.
Institutions are meant to be bigger than the people involved so If your giving Penn State the death penalty then your punishing them like they are Joe Pa's team and not the team of a public institution of learning. Its like people want to punish the fans of Penn state because of how obnoxious they have been in defending Joe Pa but the fact is these fans werent involved in the coverup so punishing the fans for what JoePa did would only make them cling to him even more