BURLINGTON — An attorney said his client was hearing voices directing him through the radio and was legally insane when he is alleged to have shot and wounded three Palestinian students in Burlington nearly three years ago.
A prosecutor described Jason Eaton as an arrogant man who always wanted to be the smartest guy in the room and knew what he was doing was wrong when he allegedly pulled the trigger on his handgun multiple times that night.
Those were two differing views presented Monday to jurors during the opening statements in Eaton’s trial in Chittenden Superior criminal court. The trial is expected to run through the week.
Eaton faces three counts of attempted second-degree murder, accusing him of shooting three college students visiting Burlington over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2023. If convicted of even one of the charges, Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Eaton has raised the insanity defense, putting a focus during the trial on the testimony of experts for each side who are expected to offer competing views on whether he should be held criminally responsible for the shootings.
The arguments
“This is a case about reasoned conclusions,” Sally Adams, Chittenden County chief deputy state’s attorney, said as she began her roughly 30-minute address to the jury.
Adams told the jury that Eaton emerged from a porch on his apartment building on the evening of Nov. 25, 2023, and shot the three students — Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Aliahmad.
“He doesn’t say a word,” Adams said of Eaton as he allegedly fired the shots and then fled.
“He has a sense of entitlement. He takes advantage of others,” Adams said, adding that Eaton had a “grandiose” sense of self-importance.
“We believe Mr. Eaton did not suffer from a mental disease or defect,” the prosecutor said.
Adams told jurors to consider the information experts for both sides relied on to reach their conclusions, as well as their own observations and other witness testimony throughout the trial.
Investigators encountered Eaton at his apartment building a day after the shooting, Adams said. She said that Eaton reportedly told those investigators, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Eaton made no further comments or answered any questions, Adams said, saying he wanted to talk to a lawyer.
Later testing revealed matches between a gun found inside Eaton’s apartment and casings found at the shooting scene, Adams said.
Joshua O’Hara, one of Eaton’s attorneys, countered during his opening statement that the evidence would show that his client met the legal standard for insanity at the time of the shootings.
“This case is going to be hard. This case is going to be difficult,” O’Hara said to the jury.
The defense attorney told jurors they would hear expert testimony about the complicated topic of mental health.
O’Hara said Eaton had lost his job at a credit union shortly before the shootings and was suffering from delusions. As Eaton listened to public radio, the defense attorney said, Eaton began hearing voices he believed came from a government intelligence agency.
Initially, the voices were validating, offering praise, O’Hara said. But eventually, O’Hara said, those voices began directing Eaton, including telling him to shoot somebody by 6 p.m. on the night of Nov. 25, 2023. Eaton, the defense attorney said, believed that a nearby Jewish family needed his protection.
“He prays,” O’Hara then said of Eaton, before the shooting took place.
Community turns out
A standing-room-only crowd packed the courtroom for the trial’s opening day, including many supporters for the three students.
Joe Murphy, a University of Vermont student, said he was there to show solidarity for the three men shot.
“It was a terrible tragedy when it happened, and I think it was a moment where the community was kind of all that we had,” Murphy said. “So you know, I think our presence here today is really important to keep up that community support.”
Murphy said he was most worried about the effects of the violence, regardless of Eaton’s motives.
“You had three boys who were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic and were shot,” Murphy said. “I don’t know what was going on inside Jason Eaton’s head when it happened, but I know that when that kind of thing happens, the impact kind of speaks for itself.”
Several people in the gallery wore keffiyehs, a traditional scarf that symbolizes Palestinian identity. Two of the three students were wearing keffiyehs when they were shot.
Judge John Pacht, speaking before jurors entered the room, told people in the gallery they could not visibly wear keffiyehs in the courtroom, fearing that it could taint the jurors as they considered the case.
People in the crowd wearing keffiyehs either took them off or covered them up with other clothing.
Pacht said he would allow the three students to wear keffiyehs as they testified, and later on Monday each of them took the witness stand with a keffiyeh draped over his shoulders.
Testimony begins
Eaton, dressed in a blue suit with a white shirt and blue tie, leaned back in his chair at the defense table between his two attorneys as he listened to the three students’ testimony.
Awartani testified from his wheelchair, telling the jury his injuries from the shooting left his lower body paralyzed.
Awartani said he traveled to Burlington over the Thanksgiving holiday with two friends to visit relatives, including his grandmother and uncle.
He said that on the day of the shooting they had gone to a bowling alley as part of a birthday party for a relative, and when they returned early in the evening, he and his two friends went outside for a walk and to smoke cigarettes.
As they walked back to the home where they were staying on North Prospect Street, Awartani told the jurors, they were speaking to each other in a mix of English and Arabic. A man then approached them, Awartani said.
“He pulled a handgun and started shooting at us,” Awartani said of that man, whom he did not know.
Awartani said he fell to the ground and called 911, reporting the shootings and that the gunman had fled. At one point on the 911 call played in court Monday for the jury, Awartani told the dispatcher, “I think I’m gonna die.”
Awartani, like his two friends Abdalhamid and Aliahmad, who also testified Monday, told jurors that the man did not say a word before the shootings or afterward.
Abdalhamid said he ran after the shooting, trying to find a place to hide before going to a residence where he found people to call 911. He said it wasn’t until he sat in a chair at that residence that he realized he had been shot in his right buttock.
Aliahmad told jurors he wasn’t immediately sure what happened when the shooting took place.
“I heard some gunshots, and I was on the ground,” Aliahmad said, adding he kept still, fearing that a shooter may still be out there. “I was playing dead.”
This story was first published by VtDigger and is republished with permission as part of the Vermont Journalism Trust’s Community News Sharing Project.