Well, the president can order members of the military to do things as CIC, not random civillians.

Anyway, yes: The person who carries out the order, if its obviously wrong, is responsible for their actions, which was the judge’s point. But that doesn’t mean the person who gave the order can’t also be guilty, assuming they intended for the person to really do it and believed that they would (as opposed to a joke about “go rob a bank” that someone bizarrely acted on). It doesn’t necessarily depend on having formal authority to order someone (mob bosses who order hits have no LEGAL authority to do so) but on whether the person intended & expected their directions to be acted on.

This isn’t some totally new situation; courts handle cases all the time where one person actually commits the crime, but did so at the direction of another, whether it’s Tony Soprano asking Paulie to “take care of a witness” or a spouse who encourages her lover to get rid of her husband. Paulie is guilty, but Tony can be charged too, though the prosecution has to convince the jury that when Tony said “take care of” he really did mean “kill” and not “give him a foot massage.” Guilt isn’t like a pie that gets divided up, so that if Paulie is fully responsible for his actions, there’s no guilt left over for Tony.