Insanity Defense Complicates Prosecution of Jason Eaton

The case has been unusual from the start: A man is accused of shooting three college students as they walked past his Burlington apartment in a shocking act of violence with no apparent motive.

The victims — Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad — and their families believe that Jason Eaton targeted the trio because they are Palestinian, perhaps out of some twisted form of retribution for the Hamas attack on Israel only weeks earlier. The young men were speaking a mix of English and Arabic, and two wore Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs.

But prosecutors say they found no proof that the accused shooter harbored anti-Palestinian views. And as Seven Days previously reported, Eaton had posted messages on social media that seemed to express sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

Now, a series of legal developments has further complicated the case, calling into question whether the victims will be able to attend the trial of the man they say tried to take their lives.

On April 17, Eaton notified the court that he intended to mount an insanity defense at his trial, which was scheduled for June. An expert witness was prepared to testify that Eaton suffered from an unspecified delusional disorder that had rendered him legally insane at the time of the crime.

There has been little debate over whether Eaton pulled the trigger, so the strategy appeared to make sense.

The three young men, all 20 at the time, were visiting Awartani’s grandmother and uncle in Burlington over the Thanksgiving holiday. They say Eaton stepped off his porch and, without saying a word, opened fire. The men survived. Awartani, the most seriously injured, was paralyzed from the chest down by a bullet lodged in his spine.

The following day, a federal agent knocked on Eaton’s apartment door, and he opened it, reportedly saying, “I’ve been waiting for you.” Investigators found a gun in his home that allegedly matched the one used in the shooting, court records show.

Meanwhile, comments Eaton made in the two and a half years he’s been in prison have raised serious questions about his mental health.

He told one mental health provider a few months after the shooting that he didn’t know why he did it. Later, when speaking to psychiatric evaluators, he said he had been receiving messages from intelligence agencies through his FM radio, court records show.

He has said he may have misinterpreted those supposed messages. Even so, he repeatedly refused to consider an insanity defense throughout most of his case.

Comments that Eaton has made in the two and a half years he’s been in prison have raised serious questions about his mental health.

He sought to fire his public defenders for pushing the idea, saying he wished instead to transfer the case to federal court. That would allow Eaton to raise what’s known as the “public authority defense,” in which a defendant receives immunity because they were acting on behalf of a government. (A judge denied his requests.)

Last month, Eaton was found fit to stand trial yet again, and it became clear that his case was barreling toward a conclusion. That’s when Eaton finally embraced the idea of an insanity claim.

His change of heart came just six weeks before trial, after hundreds of jury summonses had already been mailed out across the county.

Judge John Pacht grappled with whether to allow the defense and, if so, whether the trial should be delayed.

Arguments to deny the insanity defense appeared strong. The deadline to raise the issue had long passed, and prosecutors warned that they could not find their own expert in such a short time frame.

Further complicating matters, all three victims planned to return home to the West Bank, where their families also live, after the June trial concluded. Prosecutors worried that they might not be able to return to Vermont were the trial to be postponed.

One has been in the U.S. on a student visa. While the other two are dual citizens, any number of complications could prevent them from returning to the U.S., including a potential resumption of the war in Gaza.

“Any time there is bombing occurring, nobody leaves,” Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said in an interview last week. “So, if conflict rearises in August or September, nobody’s going to be able to get out, even if you are a dual citizen.”

George told Pacht that granting Eaton’s late request for an insanity defense would put the state in the “impossible position” of having to choose between heading to trial without either an expert or the key witnesses.

Pacht was sympathetic. But after half a dozen hearings, Pacht sided with Eaton, citing the severity of the charges and the lingering questions about Eaton’s mental health.

As for the trial date, Pacht deferred the decision to prosecutors.

The ruling frustrated George, who said it seemed obvious to her that Eaton has been trying to manipulate the trial schedule in his favor.

“A major burden is now being put on the state and the victims, and very little burden, if any, is being put on the defense, for what we feel is Mr. Eaton’s fault,” she said.

She was also concerned about the precedent that Pacht’s ruling set for other cases involving insanity defenses, which have become more common in recent years, she said. What’s the point of a deadline if defendants can “just ignore it?” she asked.

George met with the three victims last week to discuss their two options. She said she told the young men that she believed she could secure a conviction even without an expert witness testifying that Eaton was sane and culpable for the crime.

“I could have just cross-examined their expert and, I think, convinced a jury that he was not credible,” she told Seven Days.

But she acknowledged that juries place great value on the testimony of expert witnesses, which could make proceeding without one risky.

The young men thought it over for a day, then informed George that they’d like to postpone the trial, even if it jeopardized their ability to attend. Pacht granted the request last week, and the trial is now scheduled for mid-September.

The postponement came as a relief to Eaton’s attorneys, who will have more time to prepare their defense.

“To rush through preparation for this defense would create an appellate issue, and it’s just not right to either party,” Eaton’s attorney, Margaret Jansch, told reporters last week.

The three [victims] want the process brought to an end with a decisive conviction.
Marian Price

Prosecutor George, too, will have more time to prepare and said she believes she has identified an expert witness who could be ready for the new trial date. She’s holding out hope that the victims will be able to make it, though she’s not taking any chances.

At her request, the court will hold a daylong hearing on June 2 — originally scheduled to be the first full day in the trial — for what’s known as “preservation testimony.”

The rare legal procedure is used to secure on-the-record testimony and cross-examination of witnesses who, for whatever reason, may not be able to attend a trial. George said she has only done it one other time in her career, in a case that involved an aging witness in failing health.

The hearing will be recorded on video and will proceed much like any trial. Eaton will be there. Two of the victims will testify.

Should either of those men not make the trial, George would have the option to play their June testimony for jurors.

An attorney representing the three men said they were unavailable for an interview this week. But Marian Price, Awartani’s grandmother, who lives in Burlington, confirmed that they supported the postponement.

“The three young men are pacing themselves through this long drawn out process,” Price said in a text message. She added that the men recognize that denying Eaton an insanity defense or rushing the case to trial now could give his attorneys grounds for an appeal.

“The three want the process brought to an end with a decisive conviction,” she wrote.

One outstanding question remains: whether the trial will be held in a courtroom in Chittenden County. Eaton’s attorneys have asked for a change of venue, arguing that intense local media coverage has tainted the potential juror pool.

Prosecutors oppose the request. The case received global attention, George said, and the defense would need to show that there’s somewhere else in Vermont where people haven’t heard about the case.

“I think that’s pretty unlikely,” she said. ➆

The original print version of this article was headlined “Delay Tactics? | A last-minute insanity claim has thrown a wrench into the high-profile case against the man accused of shooting three college students of Palestinian descent.”