Jason Eaton, who was accused of shooting three Palestinian students in Burlington last year, was deemed fit to stand trial

Jason Eaton, the man accused of shooting and wounding three Palestinian and Palestinian-American men in Burlington nearly a year ago, has been deemed fit to stand trial, according to the judge presiding over the case.

The results of Eaton's psychological evaluation were discussed during a status hearing Tuesday in Chittenden County Superior Court. During the hearing, Judge John Pacht also granted an extension of time for the case.

In August, the court set a December 16 deadline for testimony to be taken. But Eaton's attorney, Peggy Jansch of the Chittenden County Public Defender's Office, said during Tuesday's hearing that there was “no way” she could complete testimony in that time frame.

Jansch asked the judge to extend that deadline until next June. “It’s a recognition of what we can do,” Jansch said.

However, the prosecutor disagreed. Chittenden County Attorney Sarah George called for a “significantly shorter” extension and asked Pacht to instead set a deadline of the end of March.

“I think the end of June represents a significant delay, with no real reason why it took so long,” George said. “If we make it to June, we don’t expect a trial until the end of next year.”

The state, George said, has 30 witnesses lined up to testify in court, and her office has conducted two depositions.

Pacht set a deadline of May 31 to conduct witness statements and interview additional witnesses. A status conference was scheduled for early March to determine how the matter was progressing.

“That really should be enough time to get things done,” Pacht said.

Eaton, 49, is accused of shooting and wounding three Palestinian and Palestinian-American men – Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Aliahmad, all of whom were 20 years old at the time of the shooting.

The three attended high school together in the West Bank and were attending various colleges in the United States at the time of the shooting. They had been visiting one of their families in Burlington for Thanksgiving.

They were walking on North Prospect Street on the evening of Nov. 25, speaking a mix of Arabic and English and wearing keffiyehs, a traditional scarf that is a symbol of Palestinian identity, authorities said, when Eaton approached them from a nearby porch zukam is said to have shot all three.

At his arraignment, Eaton pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder. He has been held without bail at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans since his arrest shortly after the shooting.

Despite calls for the act to be prosecuted as a hate crime, prosecutor George previously said her team did not have enough evidence to make that charge.

Eaton was last in court in August, when he requested a private hearing to fire the public defenders representing him. He had also asked to present his arguments for dismissing his lawyers in a private court hearing – closed to prosecutors, the public and the press – to explain his reasoning.

Both requests were denied by Superior Court Judge Kevin Griffin at the Aug. 2 hearing.