Attorneys ‘Explore’ Insanity Defense in Burlington Shooting

Attorneys are exploring an insanity defense for a man accused of shooting three Palestinian-American college students in Burlington in November 2023.

Jason Eaton’s public defenders disclosed the prospect in court briefs related to a dispute about data collected from the victims’ cell phones. Eaton faces three counts of attempted murder.

The defense attorneys have previously raised questions about their client’s mental health. They commissioned a psychiatrist to evaluate whether Eaton was mentally fit to stand trial. The evaluator found Eaton to be competent.

Insanity defenses have almost never succeeded at trial in Vermont, and Eaton’s attorneys have not yet decided to go that route, the filings indicate. Under Vermont law, a defendant must give formal notice of an insanity defense to the court and disclose the names of any mental health experts who will support the claim.

Court proceedings so far have offered little insight into Eaton’s state of mind when he allegedly decided to shoot Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali Ahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid as they walked past his apartment on North Prospect Street. The three victims, who were all 20 years old at the time, attend colleges in other states and were visiting Awartani’s family in Burlington over the Thanksgiving holiday. They did not know Eaton.

The shooting occurred shortly after the war in Gaza erupted. The fact that the men were speaking a mix of English and Arabic, and two were wearing Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs, has fueled suspicion that Eaton targeted them because of their identities.

But with most of the evidence already reviewed, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George has not found anything to support a hate-crime enhancement. A review of Eaton’s devices has not turned up statements that indicate a strong anti-Palestinian or pro-Israeli view, she said in an interview on Monday. As Seven Days previously reported, Eaton had sent messages on a private account on X that seemed to express some sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

George emphasized that her analysis could change if new facts come to light. Otherwise, the state’s attorney said she doesn’t want to risk a strong case for attempted murder in pursuit of a weaker case on hate-crime grounds.

The victims, however, maintain that the bare facts of the shooting are enough to support the enhanced charge. Abdalhamid’s mother, Tamara Tamimi, said in an interview on Monday that she’s not surprised Eaton’s attorneys are looking to an insanity “excuse,” but she considers it dishonest.

“I think there was a clear motive there, which was hate,” Tamimi said.

As Eaton’s attorneys “explore” a possible insanity defense, they are seeking access to the victims’ cell phone data, which Burlington police collected in the hours after the shooting with the victims’ consent.

Both George and the victims have strongly opposed that request. The three men, through their own attorney, filed briefs describing the cell phone records as irrelevant to the case. Handing them over would invade the victims’ privacy, according to their attorney, William Clark of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

“In what way could data on the cell phones of the victims be in any way relevant to the suspect’s state of mind?” Clark said in an interview.

Clark said the police sought the men’s phones while they were in the hospital recovering from their injuries. The men later revoked their consent, Clark said.

George reviewed data from one of the men’s phones and concluded that it contained nothing relevant to the prosecution. She doesn’t intend to introduce any of it at trial, but wants a judge to rule on Eaton’s request before her office deletes the material.

Eaton’s attorneys, in arguing that they should be allowed to review the data, wrote only that the records “may — or may not — support” an insanity claim.

“The defense cannot know unless and until it is provided with the cell phone data,” public defenders Joshua S. O’Hara and Margaret Jansch wrote.

Jansch declined to comment ahead of a yet-to-be-scheduled hearing on the dispute, calling it “premature.”

The cell phone debate takes on added significance given the politically charged circumstances surrounding the case. Should Eaton’s attorneys gain access to the young men’s data, their personal communications could become public at trial, subjecting their lives and personal opinions to public scrutiny.

George, in court filings, referenced the “current political climate” as a reason why the judge should honor the victims’ privacy concerns.

She elaborated in an interview on Monday, referencing President Donald Trump’s administration’s recent immigration enforcement actions against some pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses. Two of the three victims in the Burlington shooting were born in the U.S.; Tahseen Aliahmad was born in the West Bank, the New York Times Magazine reported in a profile of the men.

Ali Ahmad’s phone is the only one that George’s office has reviewed.

“It was a pretty typical phone for a 20-year-old kid,” George said.