The trial of Jason Eaton will spill into next week after lingering debates over jury instructions prompted Judge John Pacht on Friday to postpone closing arguments.
Both sides finished presenting evidence in Chittenden Superior Court on Friday afternoon. But Pacht said he didn’t want to hand the attempted murder case to the jury just before the weekend.
So the judge sent jurors home and scheduled closing arguments for Monday morning.
Pacht said he made the decision in part because he still needed to resolve a debate over jury instructions that has persisted throughout the weeklong trial.
Eaton faces three counts of attempted murder for shooting three Palestinian men as they walked along a sidewalk outside his Burlington apartment in 2023. The college students were visiting one of their family members for Thanksgiving at the time. The shooting left one of them paralyzed.
Eaton has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His attorneys also want the court to give jurors the option to convict him of a less serious offense. They pushed Pacht to offer aggravated assault as an alternative.
But Eaton, who has frequently criticized his public defenders and attempted to have them removed from the case, wants the jury to consider manslaughter as an option. The charge carries a shorter possible prison term.
As Pacht explained that he believed manslaughter doesn’t apply in this case because it involves violence during the heat of passion or provocation, Eaton interjected with comparisons to World War II and 9/11.
“If Anne Frank killed Adolf Hitler, would that be a provocation?” he said. “If the people on Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, murdered their fellow passengers, is that a passion?”
One of Eaton’s public defenders, Peggy Jansch, urged Eaton to stop.
“Jason, please, you’re not helping yourself,” she said.
The jury was not present for the exchange.
Eaton’s insanity defense relies largely on the testimony of a psychiatrist who evaluated Eaton and diagnosed him with a delusional disorder. In the days following the shooting, Eaton said he believed he was receiving messages from the government while listening to the radio, and that U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies were behind them.
On Friday, the state’s own psychiatric expert, Dr. Jhilam Biswas, was cross-examined by Eaton’s attorneys. Biswas testified that Eaton has not been psychotic or delusional. Instead, she said has a personality disorder involving narcissistic traits that contributed to his decision-making.
Eaton at times has questioned the legitimacy of his grandiose and paranoid beliefs, Biswas said, which indicated to her that they were not psychiatric delusions.
The state called a mental health clinician who works in Vermont prisons as its last witness.
Emily Eckel testified that Eaton has not been diagnosed as suffering from delusions during his pre-trial incarceration.
Eckel had listed delusions as a possible diagnosis following an initial meeting with Eaton, during which he said he had the ability to see into the past and future, she said. He described it as a “superpower,” Eckel testified.
However, prison clinicians later ruled out delusional disorder as a diagnosis, she said.
