A jury in Burlington, Vermont, on Monday found Jason Eaton guilty of three counts of attempted second-degree murder stemming from the 2023 shooting of three Palestinian students attending college in the Northeast. The jury deliberated for only a few hours before rendering the guilty verdict, rejecting Eaton’s insanity defense.

Eaton was convicted of attempted second-degree murder, a standard that differs from first-degree in that it does not often require any form of premeditation prior to the killing or attempted killing. In contrast, for an individual to be found guilty of second-degree murder, they generally only need to form an intent to kill or extreme recklessness in their actions.

In November 2023, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Alaihmad were in the Burlington area visiting relatives over the Thanksgiving holiday when Eaton fired shots at them as they walked by his house near the University of Vermont (UVM) campus. The gunshots injured the individuals and left Awartani partially paralyzed.

Following his arrest and subsequent attempted murder charge, Eaton claimed that he was acting under orders from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israeli intelligence agency, both of which allegedly transmitted messages to him via FM radio through a local NPR affiliate. At trial, defense attorney Joshua O’Hara conveyed that the messages Eaton claims he heard became increasingly dark and insistent that Eaton go out and shoot the individuals in order to protect his Jewish neighbors.

His attorneys subsequently invoked the insanity defense, which carries a high legal threshold. Conceptually, the insanity defense exists as a method to exculpate individuals who are unable to understand the wrongness of their actions, control their actions due to a mental disability, or form the requisite intent necessary to satisfy intentional crimes, such as second-degree murder. Oftentimes, those utilizing the insanity defense are seeking an outcome at trial that includes mental treatment and recovery focused on rehabilitation.

However, this defense is traditionally difficult to prove as many states, such as Vermont, place the burden on the defendant to establish insanity by preponderance of the evidence, requiring expert testimony and evaluation. In felony cases, this defense is invoked less than 1% of the time and, when it is employed, it is only successful about 25% of the time.

At Eaton’s trial, a forensic psychiatrist testified that in his opinion as an expert, Eaton was legally insane at the time of the shooting, relying on recordings taken after the shooting, interviews, and medical and court records.

However, Eaton faces up to life in prison without possibility of parole as he awaits his sentencing date, which was not immediately set.