Jason Eaton was legally sane when he shot three Palestinian men outside his Burlington apartment three years ago, a forensic psychiatrist testified for the prosecution Thursday.

While Eaton has a long history of mental health issues, Dr. Jhilam Biswas told jurors, he doesn’t suffer from the kind of severe illness that would cause the break from reality he’s previously described experiencing before the attack.

Eaton, 51, is charged with three counts of attempted murder for the November 23, 2023 shooting that injured Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad and left Hisham Awartani partially paralyzed.

On Wednesday, jurors listened to audio recordings that Eaton’s attorneys made of a conversation with him just five days after the men were shot. Eaton said he’d pulled the trigger at the insistence of messages he’d received through FM radio and Bluetooth.

Prosecutors are relying on Biswas to convince jurors that Eaton fails to meet the legal standard for an insanity defense.

To claim insanity in Vermont, defendants must meet a two-prong test. They must prove that they had a “mental disease or defect,” and they must show that it prevented them from understanding they were about to commit a crime.

Biswas, who is the director of the Psychiatry, Law, and Society Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said she saw no point in assessing whether Eaton understood he was about to break law, since he failed the test’s first prong.

Dr. Jhilam Biswas on the stand Credit: Paul Heintz/Boston Globe

She said she based her opinion on interviews with Eaton, his sister and his mother, along with a review of his extensive medical records.

She noted he has never been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, and the only time his medical records mention symptoms consistent with psychosis was in December 2020 — shortly after Eaton resumed cannabis use following seven years of sobriety.

Records from the nearly three years Eaton has spent in prison awaiting trial, meanwhile, describe no delusional behavior, despite him not receiving medication, Biswas testified.

The defense’s expert, Dr. Fabian Saleh, argued that this could be because Eaton was instructed by his attorneys to not discuss the case. Saleh diagnosed Eaton with a psychotic disorder that caused delusions and interfered with his ability to tell right from wrong.

Biswas was skeptical.

“When you have a delusional disorder, it’s taking over your life,” Biswas said. “It’s taking over the way you think. You can’t argue it away.”

Biswas was reluctant to diagnose Eaton, although she said he meets the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. People must generally display at least five of nine traits to receive that diagnosis, including a grandiose sense of self and a lack of empathy.

Eaton demonstrates eight, she said, which is perhaps why he has found it difficult to maintain relationships throughout his life.

Biswas was equally reluctant to opine about why someone without a severe mental illness would shoot three complete strangers. But she pointed to a “constellation of factors” that she believes contributed to Eaton’s actions.

He was under a lot of stress: He had recently been fired from a finance company because he accused its leaders of stealing, leaving him in fear of winding up homeless again, Biswas said.

He was also smoking marijuana daily. As a self-described conspiracy theorist, Eaton was already predisposed to paranoid thoughts, the psychiatrist said. Daily cannabis use could cause that paranoia to intensify over time, she said.

On cross, defense attorney Peggy Jansch challenged Biswas’ methods and conclusions.

Biswas initially told Eaton she was conducting a “court-ordered” evaluation, rather than one on behalf of prosecutors, Jansch said, referring to a transcript of that conversation. Biswas responded that it was a slip of the tongue. Eaton, who had already met with the defense’s expert, clearly understood why she was there, she said.

Jansch also questioned Biswas about her conclusions regarding Eaton’s cannabis use and her assertion that he does not harbor delusions, which are defined as fixed, false beliefs.

Eaton has maintained the same story all along, Jansch said. He even attempted to get the case moved to federal court so that he could pursue what’s known as a “public authority defense,” in which a defendant receives immunity because they were acting on behalf of a government.

Does that not show unwavering belief? Jansch asked.

But Biswas argued that Eaton’s uncertainty about what occurred was more relevant. He told his attorneys days after the shooting that he knew he may be imagining the messages. He told Biswas the same when speaking to her this July.

“He himself is grappling with the fact that it could have been a psychotic break,” she said, which demonstrates a level of insight that rules out a delusional disorder.

The defense’s cross-examination will continue Friday.

On Thursday, jurors also heard more from Eaton’s recorded conversation with his attorneys — only this time, it was prosecutors sharing snippets.

While questioning Dr. Saleh, the defense’s expert witness, State’s Attorney Sarah George read aloud parts of the conversation that hadn’t been previously played in court.

Eaton had heard on the news that the young men, who were from the West Bank, were in Burlington visiting Awartani’s grandmother. He told his attorneys he wished the woman had notified him that the trio would be walking through his neighborhood “dressed up like terrorists,” George said, reading from a transcript.

“If grandma had said to them, ‘Maybe now is not a great time to wear the thing on their head,’” Eaton said, according to George. Two of the three men were wearing traditional Palestinian headscarves known as keffiyehs that night.

Eaton was far more animated on Thursday than he had been during the first three days of his trial. When the judge arrived, he asked to represent himself.

He accused his defense team of refusing to raise certain objections, introduce important records or call on his doctor to testify, despite his urging. He also criticized them — and by extension their expert — for failing to spool out his mental health history in a more coherent manner.

The request was not surprising. Eaton has butted heads with his public defenders throughout his three-year-old case, refusing until the last moment to accept their advice that he pursue an insanity defense. His two previous requests for new lawyers were both denied.

Judge John Pacht denied his latest request, too.

“We’re in the middle of a trial,” he said.

“I vigorously, strenuously, repeatedly object to the denial of the motion,” Eaton replied.

Eaton continued to register his displeasure throughout the day. He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling and whispered animatedly at his attorneys.

He even flirted with testifying, against their advice, telling Pacht while the jury was not present he believed that could be the only way for his mental health records to be adequately portrayed. But after thinking it over during the lunch break, Eaton said he’d decided against taking the stand.

At one point, also while the jury was out of the room, Pacht posed a legal question.

An unknown voice then reverberated in the courtroom: a woman watching the proceedings virtually who accidentally unmuted herself.

Pacht quipped that he had hoped the speaker was about to answer his question.

Eaton then piped up, smiling.

He asked, “Was it FM?”