After listening to two diametrically opposed psychiatric findings on the mental competency of Dr. Lishan Wang, who is accused of gunning down Yale doctor Vajinder Toor outside his Branford condo last year, Superior Court Judge Roland D. Fasano wondered aloud: “Is there any way of reconciling these two views?”
The judge was reacting to the extremely divergent viewpoints presented in the court on New Haven’s Church Street Wednesday during more than two hours of testimony. In the end, the judge called a recess until Monday, Feb. 28 at 2 p.m., when he will resume the hearing, listen to the attorneys sum-up and likely rule.
Last September Judge Fasano found that Dr. Wang, who turned 45 in January, is incompetent to stand trial. He was sent for further examination to Connecticut Valley Hospital’s forensic division in Middletown, where Dr. Mark Cotterell oversees the hospital’s competency cases.
Dr. Cotterell testified for the state in December, finding Dr. Wang had been restored to competency. He took the stand again yesterday and repeated his findings. Competency means a defendant understands the charges against him and can assist his attorneys in his defense.
Another psychiatrist, Dr. Peter T. Morgan, of the Yale School of Medicine, drew a far more devastating portrait of Dr. Wang’s mental condition. Testifying for the defense, Dr. Morgan declared that Dr. Wang suffers from a serious psychotic disorder that prevents him from believing the Toor murder actually happened and that he was involved in it. He also believes “other people can put thoughts in his mind,” Dr. Morgan said. Dr. Morgan testified after Judge Fasano agreed to a defense request in November for an outside expert psychiatric examination of Dr. Wang.
For months the public defender’s team, led by Scott Jones and Tejas Bhatt, has told the judge that Dr. Wang will not discuss the murder case, his past life in China or his family, among other topics.
Dr. Morgan explained to the court that Dr. Wang won’t discuss his own case because that way he does not have to believe the Toor murder actually took place. Dr. Wang was captured by Branford police shortly after he allegedly gunned down Dr. Toor and tried to kill Dr. Toor’s wife outside their condo.
Branford police found three guns, 12,000 rounds of ammunition and in his right jacket pocket, two fully loaded semi-automatic ammo magazines. 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.
Dr. Morgan said Dr. Wang is delusional and should be on anti-psychotic drugs, which his current doctors have not prescribed for him. He also said that Dr. Wang is doing everything in his power to be declared competent.
The hearing began when Dr. Cotterell was called to the stand by Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Gene R. Calistrio, Jr., who has the burden to prove that Dr. Wang is competent to stand trial. There was a brief interruption when Jones told the judge that his client was upset because he was under the impression that the hearing was not open to the public. Judge Fasano explained that this was a public hearing. The psychiatric report, he told Dr. Wang, is not open to the public.
Dr. Wang, wearing leg irons, a dark green sweater, the same one he wore to court in December, and sporting a goatee, said nothing more. His hands were cuffed in front of him. He was alert during the hearing, closing his eyes only occasionally.
Dr. Cotterell told the court Dr. Wang was still living at the Whitney Forensic Division at Connecticut Valley Hospital where two additional team examinations took place since he last reported to the court in December. He found no delusional behavior, no misguided thinking and said he had prescribed no medication.
Dr. Cotterell said his patient acknowledged he had attorneys assisting him and “he wanted their assistance, that they were helpful to him. They were knowledgeable,” he told the court. Calistro noted that both Dr. Cotterell and his team had come to a “unanimous” opinion that Dr. Wang was competent to stand trial.
When he testified in December, Dr. Cotterell admitted that despite several interviews Dr. Wang had said nothing about wanting to represent himself at trial, a request that triggered this early competency hearing. Nor did Dr. Cotterell ask him about wanting to be his own attorney.
Under cross-examination by Bhatt, Dr. Cotterell was asked if Dr. Wang, in subsequent evaluations, had said anything about representing himself. “He has not made an assertion that ‘I want to represent myself.’” Dr. Cotterell went on to say that Dr. Wang gave the impression that he had a good working relationship with Bhatt and Jones.
Asked if he had the impression that Dr. Wang trusted his attorneys, Dr. Cotterell replied: “I have nothing to indicate he does not trust his attorneys.”
Bhatt sought to show that Dr. Wang’s problems in communicating with him and with Jones was central to whether he can assist his attorneys in his own defense.
Dr. Cotterell, however, drew a line between the ability or the capacity of a defendant to aid his attorneys and his desire, on the other hand, not to. “Capacity is not the same as choice,” said Dr. Cotterell, distinguishing between having the capacity to assist and choosing not to.
Calistro also believes that Dr. Wang, by choice, is refusing to discuss his own criminal case and the facts about his past with his own attorneys. Calistro has said in court in the past that Dr. Wang came from China, a country whose criminal justice system often elicits fear.
In the end, Cotterell said he had not measured Dr. Wang’s actual interaction with his attorneys. “I have measured his capacity. That is what I report to the court.”
Dr. Morgan, however, did observe Dr. Wang with his attorneys in one of three sessions he held with Dr. Wang over three hours. Dr. Morgan, who has conducted roughly 600 competency evaluations and who also works at the office of forensic evaluation, submitted a seven-page report to the judge.
Under questioning by Jones, Dr. Morgan found, as had the first psychiatrist in the case, Dr. Keith Shebairo, that Dr. Wang was guarded. He said he was unable to organize his thoughts, could not stay on topic and “could not remember the last question I asked him.”
Dr. Morgan said Dr. Wang said many things about his attorneys — “that sometimes he wanted to use them but he didn’t trust them. He said his defense attorneys didn’t believe he was innocent and so they could not help him. A private attorney, he said, would never have been sent “to ask all these questions.” Overall, he believed that his attorneys were working with the state against him, Dr. Morgan said.
Dr. Morgan said Dr. Wang could not even say what the charges meant. In the end he concluded that Dr. Wang did not understand the charges against him even though he could talk about them generally. Nor could he assist his attorneys in his own defense. He was therefore not competent to stand trial.
Under cross-examination by Calistro, the state’s attorney, Dr. Morgan acknowledged that there was nothing in prior psychiatric reports on Dr. Wang’s “delusions.” Nor were there any references in other reports that Dr. Wang believed other people could put thoughts into his mind.
Dr. Morgan reiterated that Dr. Wang does not want to discuss the details of his case because then “he will start to believe the crime really happened and he was involved in it.” Calistro observed that defendants often come up with their own versions of events.
Calistro asked if Dr. Wang “would not or could not” discuss the case. “
Dr. Morgan replied: “I believe he could not.”
To be restored to competency, Dr. Morgan said it was his belief that Dr. Wang needed to be placed on anti-psychotic drugs. “He can’t address issues critical to his life in this state,” he said.
Dr. Morgan finished his testimony at 4:30 p.m. The judge then addressed him. The doctor turned to face him.
“These are diametrically opposed views,” he said. “Are there any ways of reconciling them?”
Dr. Morgan paused. He said that the techniques used at the Whitney Forensic unit, where Dr. Wang is staying, are designed to give a general education about how courts work and who plays what role. But the staff is reluctant to get into the cases themselves.
“They avoid the details of cases.” The probing questions demanded of the patient were not asked, Dr. Morgan told the judge by way of explaining the divergent views heard in court yesterday.
The judge asked Dr. Morgan if he was referring to “the specific situation,” the ongoing difficulty in the relationship between Dr. Wang and his attorneys.
“Yes,” replied Morgan.
“I’d like to go over the material,” the judge said. Then he adjourned court for the day.
###