A Criminal Court judge set a trial date in the death penalty case against a 26-year-old man charged with killing a local police sergeant.
The felony murder trial of Jesse Mathews is scheduled to begin on Jan. 22, 2013, before Judge Barry Steelman.
Defense attorneys Lee Davis and Bryan Hoss have requested a jury from outside of Hamilton County to hear the case, due to ongoing publicity surrounding the April 2 shooting.
Police say Mathews shot and killed Chattanooga Police Sgt. Tim Chapin as the officer attempted to stop him from fleeing a botched robbery of the U.S. Money Shops on Brainerd Road.
Mathews fled a Colorado halfway house after being accused of committing three robberies in February, came to Chattanooga with the help of a girlfriend and his sister, Rachel Mathews; his mother, Kathleen Mathews; and father, Ray Vance Mathews, according to court documents.
They have pleaded guilty in federal court to aiding him while he was a fugitive from Colorado in the weeks leading up to the alleged money store robbery.
Sentencing hearings for Mathews’ family and Poteete are scheduled for Feb. 13, 2012.
For more see tomorrow’s Times Free Press.
Todd South covers courts, poverty, technology, military and veterans for the Times Free Press. He has worked at the paper since 2008 and previously covered crime and safety in Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia. Todd’s hometown is Dodge City, Kan. He served five years in the U.S. Marine Corps and deployed to Iraq before returning to school for his journalism degree from the University of Georgia. Todd previously worked at the Anniston (Ala.) Star. Contact ...
Why the delay? If the defense is ready for trial, why wait 13 months? Let's get this done, no reason for taxpayer money to pay for room and board for this guy a day longer than they have to.
I honestly can't explain why. But when all this broke into the news I honestly thought it would be a case where a cop may have accidently shot a fellow cop in all of the confusion going on at the time.
Don't get me wrong. Matthews should still be prosecuted, regardless.
What a sad sack of sh*t this guy is. Please, if anyone in the criminal justice system has access to Mr. Matthews ... ask him to kindly do us all a favor and hang himself so as to save the public the time, aggravation and expense of having to dispatch him to death row. Asphyxiation only takes four minutes....
January 22 of 2013? Is this a joke? Geez.
skyboxer, if something should happen to Matthews, such as a hanging made to look like a suicide, hopefully it will be fully investigated as a homicide.
Give him a fair trial, then hang em!!
we have got to trust the system just ask casey anthony what a joke!
@Legend..I'm not quite sure what purpose your comment serves??!!
Or login with:
New Account