As criminal courts across the country continue to confront cases involving mental health claims and politically charged violence, the Vermont verdict drew national attention because of both the victims and the defense presented at trial. In Burlington, a jury on Sept. 21 convicted Jason Eaton in the shooting of three Palestinian college students, rejecting his argument that he was legally insane when he opened fire near his apartment. The case has remained one of the most closely watched criminal proceedings in Vermont since the November 2023 attack.
Jury convicts Jason Eaton on three attempted murder counts
Jason Eaton, 51, was found guilty Monday on three counts of attempted second-degree murder, according to the Associated Press, Reuters and Vermont outlets covering the Chittenden Superior Court proceedings. The jury returned its verdict after less than two hours of deliberations following a weeklong trial in Burlington. Judge John Pacht then ordered Eaton jailed pending sentencing, which had not yet been scheduled as of Monday.
Prosecutors said Eaton did not dispute that he was the gunman in the Nov. 25, 2023, shooting near the University of Vermont campus. The case centered instead on whether Eaton was legally responsible for his actions when he shot Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid as they walked in Burlington during Thanksgiving weekend. Reuters reported that Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said Eaton now faces up to life without parole, with a presumptive minimum term of 20 years on each count.
Defense lawyers argued Eaton should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, saying he suffered from delusions and believed the CIA and Mossad were sending him commands through FM radio, as reported by AP and Vermont Public. Prosecutors countered that the evidence supported criminal responsibility. The jury’s verdict rejected the insanity defense in full and convicted him on all three counts.
The shooting happened in Burlington, near the University of Vermont, and quickly became a defining public safety case for the city and the state. Awartani was paralyzed from the waist down in the attack, while Aliahmad and Abdalhamid were wounded, according to AP. The three men, who grew up in Ramallah in the West Bank and later came to the United States for college, testified during the trial about the night they were shot.
Trial testimony described the group walking after a family birthday outing when Eaton approached and opened fire without speaking. AP reported that two of the students said they were wearing keffiyehs, and the men testified they were speaking a mix of English and Arabic before the gunfire began. A neighbor also testified that he heard multiple shots, then called 911 and brought blankets to the wounded students.
What remains unresolved publicly is motive in a broader social sense. No hate crime charges were filed in the case, and reporting from AP and The Washington Post noted that questions had persisted over whether anti-Palestinian bias, Eaton’s mental state or another factor drove the attack. Court proceedings established the criminal verdict, but they did not produce a separate hate crime prosecution.
The trial unfolded nearly three years after the shooting and against the backdrop of wider concern about attacks targeting Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities in the United States after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, according to AP and Reuters. That timing helped make the Burlington case nationally significant beyond Vermont. It also intensified scrutiny of whether the shooting fit into a larger pattern of bias-driven violence.
At trial, prosecutors pointed to physical evidence recovered from Eaton’s apartment, including firearms, and to crime lab testing that concluded a Ruger .380-caliber handgun found there was the weapon used in the shooting, according to AP. The defense said Eaton had been unraveling after losing his job at a credit union about two weeks before the attack. That job loss and Eaton’s reported delusions formed the basis of the insanity defense presented to jurors.
For Burlington residents, the immediate meaning of Monday’s verdict is procedural rather than speculative. Eaton remains in custody, sentencing is still ahead, and the convictions establish that the case will move into the punishment phase rather than mental health commitment through an insanity acquittal. Vermont Public, AP and Reuters all reported that the verdict closes the guilt phase of one of the state’s highest-profile criminal cases while leaving sentencing and any post-trial motions to come.