A court-ordered evaluation determined that Jason Eaton, the man accused of shooting three Palestinian college students in Burlington two years ago, is competent to stand trial.
Eaton’s attorneys disagree and have hired their own expert to conduct an evaluation, according to court records.
Another hearing for Eaton’s case is set to take place in 60 days. His trial is expected to take place next summer, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said in an email on Tuesday.
Eaton, who has pleaded not guilty to three charges of attempted second-degree murder, has been held in prison since his arrest in November 2023.
Police say Eaton stepped off a porch and, without speaking, shot and wounded Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, who were in Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday in 2023. All three were hospitalized, and Awartani, who was hit in the spine, was paralyzed from the waist down.
Eaton had previously been found competent, but earlier this year the court ordered a second evaluation after he told the court he’d been acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, VTDigger reported.
George, the Chittenden County state’s attorney, said in May those comments could provide some evidence to bring a hate crime enhancement in the case.
“In fact, I think it is providing greater context than we’ve had for a possible hate crime enhancement,” George said, according to VTDigger.
George has said her office would file hate crime charges in the case if there was evidence, but so far there hasn’t been enough to support the charge.
Vermont doesn’t have a standalone hate crime statute. 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.
Most hate crime cases in Vermont involve a defendant making incriminating statements during the alleged crime.
