If convicted of killing Chattanooga police Sgt. Tim Chapin, then Jesse Mathews deserves to die.
The pain and black-hole suffering weighing down on the Chapin family should fall on no one’s shoulders in this lifetime. No one, not once.
On Tuesday in Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman’s courtroom, as pretrial motion hearings ended, Chapin’s father had to be helped up out of the second-row pew, barely able to walk on his own, as if the family’s grief was made manifest in his body.
So it bears repeating: If found guilty, then Jesse Ray Mathews, 27, deserves to die.
But Hamilton County District Attorney Bill Cox should not seek the death penalty.