The long-awaited trial of the man accused of shooting and wounding three men of Palestinian descent in Burlington begins today.
Jason Eaton, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of attempted second-degree murder and could be sentenced to life in prison if he’s convicted. He’s been held in prison since the shooting.
During the trial, Eaton’s attorneys will argue that he was insane at the time of the crime, and therefore should not be criminally punished.
The November 2023 shooting, which occurred about a month after the beginning of the war in Gaza, made national and international headlines. As the trial, which is scheduled to last from Sept. 14 to 21, gets underway at the Judge Edward J. Costello Courthouse in downtown Burlington, here’s what you need to know:
What do police say happened during the shooting on Nov. 25, 2023?
According to the Burlington Police Department, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad were walking on North Prospect Street speaking a mixture of English and Arabic. Two of the three were also wearing keffiyehs — traditional Palestinian scarves.
While the three young men were walking, Eaton allegedly stepped off a porch and confronted them, and without speaking, fired at least four rounds from a pistol.
Court records show Awartani was hit in the spine, Abdalhamid in the glute and Ali Ahmad in the upper chest. All three survived, but Awartani was left paralyzed from the waist down.
The three young men, who were all 20 at the time of the shooting, were attending U.S. colleges and were staying with Awartani’s uncle in Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday.
How did police identify Eaton as the shooter?
The shooting took place in front of the apartment building where Eaton lived. Law enforcement officers were canvassing the apartment following the shooting and knocked on Eaton’s apartment door. When Eaton answered, he “made a statement to the effect of, ‘I’ve been waiting for you,'” according to police records.
Police obtained a search warrant for Eaton’s apartment where they found several firearms, including a Ruger .380 pistol loaded with the same brand of bullets found at the scene of the shooting, court records say.
What is Eaton charged with?
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George charged Eaton with three counts of attempted second-degree murder for allegedly shooting the three young men.
Attempted second-degree murder carries a minimum prison sentence of 20 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison, the same sentence as if someone actually committed the crime.
Under Vermont law, attempted second-degree murder means a person tried to kill someone, but attempted killing wasn’t premeditated or planned.
What else do we know about Eaton?
Eaton was born in Vermont, spent many years in New York state, and moved to Burlington in the summer of 2023, according to Seven Days.
He’d worked a variety of jobs, including serving as a research assistant at Harvard Forest, teaching middle schoolers in Idaho, and working as an assistant scoutmaster with Boy Scouts of America in New York, The Independent reported.
While some speculated the three young men were targeted because they were Palestinian, Eaton’s online presence presented a person with a complicated set of beliefs. In some social media posts he expressed sympathy for Palestinians, Seven Days reported.
According to court records, Eaton didn’t have any prior criminal convictions in Vermont. In New York state, two ex-romantic partners raised concerns about his behavior to local police, Seven Days reported.
Eaton also appears to have a history of mental health issues. His mother told news outlets that her son struggled with depression.
What is an insanity defense?
If someone is found legally insane, which means a mental illness impaired their ability to follow the law, they can’t be held criminally responsible for their actions. In Vermont, the defense has to provide insanity by a “preponderance of evidence,” a lower standard than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The insanity defense isn’t commonly used and it’s rarely successful. Recent high-profile cases where defendants pursued insanity defenses include a Burlington man who killed his wife with a meat cleaver and the man who killed five teens while driving the wrong way on I-89. Juries in both of those cases rejected the insanity defenses and found each man guilty.
Each side’s mental health experts will likely take the stand during the trial. Both the defense and prosecution tried to get each other's mental health expert barred from testifying, but neither was successful, according to court records.
Why isn’t Eaton facing any hate crime charges?
Prosecutors say they have been unable to find evidence that Eaton’s alleged actions were motivated by bias.
Vermont doesn’t have a standalone hate crime charge. Instead, state law allows prosecutors to add a hate crime “enhancement” to a charge if the defendant’s actions are motivated by bias towards a protected class, which includes race, gender, class and sexual orientation. The enhancement increases the criminal penalties a defendant faces.
In Vermont, most hate crime cases involve a defendant making incriminating statements during the alleged crime. In 2023, a Vermont Public review of a dozen recently filed hate crime cases found that all the incidents involved a person using racial, ethnic or homophobic slurs during the alleged crime.
The family of the victims, shortly after the shooting, said they believed their sons were targeted for being Palestinian and criticized media reports that “centered on the defendant’s mental health.”
“Millions of people in America and across the globe struggle with mental health challenges,” the family said in the statement. “That does not make them pick up a gun and attack people based on their identity. We do not accept what this wrongfully implies about people who struggle with their mental health, nor do we accept it as justification or context for this heinous, hate-driven crime.”
Why has it taken nearly three years for this case to come to trial?
Serious criminal cases like this one often do take longer to get to trial, but in this case there have been other hurdles.
Eaton has filed requests to fire his attorneys, and there have been questions about whether he was competent to stand trial.
What is the difference between competency and sanity?
Competency means that a defendant understands the charges against them, and can follow the court proceedings and aid in their own defense. Sanity refers to a defendant’s state of mind at the time of the alleged crime.
It’s taken more than a year to sort out whether Eaton is fit to stand trial. During a hearing in May 2025, Eaton, who’d initially been found competent, claimed without evidence that he’d been acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, during the shooting. The judge ordered a new competency exam, which found Eaton was fit to stand trial — but his defense attorneys disagreed, which launched another round of competency exams and hearings.
In April 2026, Judge John Pacht ruled that Eaton was competent, but then allowed the trial to be delayed after granting a late request by Eaton to pursue an insanity defense.
