Branford P.D.
Dr. Lishan Wang, who is charged with fatally shooting a former colleague, Dr. Vanjinder Toor, has decided to let a team of public defenders represent him at a probable cause hearing to be held in Superior Court. The April 20 hearing will take place six days before the first anniversary of the murder of Dr. Toor, who was allegedly shot to death as he left his Branford condo on Blueberry Lane. He was 34.
At a short hearing in Superior Court on Church Street last week, Dr. Wang, who won the right to represent himself in all court proceedings, said through his attorneys and through a Mandarin interpreter that he now wants Scott Jones and Tejas Bhatt, his assigned public defenders, to defend him at the hearing. But he made it clear that he reserved the right to represent himself at trial.
A probable cause hearing takes place before a judge, not a jury, but is, in effect, a mini-trial. The prosecutor, in this case Senior State Attorney Gene R. Calistro, Jr., must prove to the judge by a preponderance of the evidence that he has established probable cause that Dr. Wang committed the murder on the morning of April 26, 2010. Police say that Dr. Wang lay in wait for Dr. Toor and then opened fire. Dr. Toor was a post-doctoral fellow at the Yale School of Medicine at the time.
Calistro does not have to put on his whole case because establishing probable cause requires a low threshold of evidence. Calistro indicated in court that he would concentrate on the ballistics and firearms evidence. “The state will ask for expedited testing on ballistics and firearms evidence,” he said, referring to a letter he planned to send to the state forensic laboratory where such testing is done.
The evidence that will be presented to the court will include three guns and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition that police found in Dr. Wang’s van, two fully loaded semi-automatic handgun magazines, shell casings and the two bullets that were taken from the body of Dr. Toor, Callistro said in a subsequent interview.
Others who may be called to testify include Dr. Toor’s wife, Parneeta Sidhu, whom police say Dr. Wang shot at but missed. She might be called to identify Dr. Wang, thus putting him at the scene. Callistro is expected to call Branford police officer Joe Peterson, who stopped Dr. Wang’s van minutes after the shooting, just before he headed onto I‑95 South.
During the ten-minute hearing, Dr. Wang, 45, seemed concerned about two issues.
At the outset, using his Mandarin interpreter for the first time in a long time, Dr. Wang wanted to make sure that Superior Court Judge Leonard D. Fasano understood his position.
“You want to be represented by your attorneys at a probable cause hearing, but you reserve the right to represent yourself at trial.”
“Correct,” said Dr. Wang who wore a tan prison jump suit.
For months Jones and Bhatt have told the judge that Dr. Wang would not cooperate with them. He will not discuss the murder case, his past life in China or his family, among other topics. They have complained about his failure to communicate and they have produced evidence that they say shows he is not competent to stand trial. But Judge Fasano ruled otherwise last month. Now they will represent him at the hearing but whether he cooperates with them remains to be seen. Two radically different views of Dr. Wang’s mental competency have emerged in court in recent months.
Police said Dr. Wang, who had driven from Marietta, Ga., to Branford, had a photograph of Dr. Toor and directions to his home and the homes of other doctors in New York. Police said Dr. Wang sought revenge against Dr. Toor and two other physicians whom he blamed for ending his medical career at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn.
The second issue Dr. Wang’s attorneys said he was concerned about was raised as the ten-minute hearing drew to a close. Dr. Wang said he needed to be able to understand the difference between the standard of law used at a probable cause hearing and the standard of law used at trial. At trial the legal standard for conviction is far higher than at a preliminary hearing. At trial, a jury must base its findings on evidence that proves a defendant engaged in a crime that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Before a jury gets the case, the judge explains how to arrive at the reasonable doubt standard.
In court, Dr. Wang sought to understand the distinction between the two sets of legal standards, spending several minutes discussing this issue with his attorneys and his interpreter while the judge waited. He also said through his attorneys that he wants to see all evidence in the case.
The probable cause hearing will give Dr. Wang a chance to test the waters, to see at least some of the evidence the prosecutor has gathered against him. He will get to see his own attorneys at work and how they cross-examine witnesses.
A probable cause hearing is usually waived and were Dr. Wang’s public defenders making the decision they would likely waive it in part because testimony at a probable cause hearing, however it goes, may later be used at trial.
But Dr. Wang is now in charge of his case. He is calling the shots.
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