So lets say there is only 1 moderator on the server. And I have a report out that hasn't been dealt with yet, then during the round that moderator takes the report and I get the notification that it's being dealt with. If my tab shows me they are still "Alive" can't I use common sense and consider them to be dead since they're handling the report? Which can only be done once they're dead/spectating..
I do not think you can. If you open the f8 menu pre round, then you can continue using it after round start normally and handle all reports.
I don't think it's necessarily that. While opening the menu requires the staff member to be dead or spectating, it doesn't close next round until the staff member closes it (attempting to open it again will prompt the message that they can't be alive). However it's not recommended to keep it open since it may lead to ghosting if staff look at a report from the current round.
Dadly and Orion have the gist of it. It isn't impossible for mods to have the report menu open while alive, so you shouldn't me making KOS's based on the belief that they're dead.
That's an interesting topic actually. As mentioned above, moderators can still move around with the report menu open from preround, but they can't free look with their mouse until they close it. I'm pretty sure console commands (+spin,-spin, etc) might be able to negate that exclusivity factor so you couldn't common sense a moderator you formerly saw freelooking, although those are pretty obvious when they are in use and would catch an eye if you are truly using such methodology to narrow down your suspects, super interesting case that will probably wind up into "yeah, super duper obvious but unusable in a common sense argument"
You could - if you see the moderator physically turning, shooting, doing just about anything outside of what they can do with keyboard only, they have closed the F8 menu. You could use this information to create a common sense kill. Long as you can explain the other possibilities, then you can honestly kill for just about any common sense reason.