WTNH-Pool
A legal war between Dr. Lishan Wang and the public defender’s office has prompted a Superior Court judge to permit the appointment of a special public defender as Dr. Wang’s stand-by counsel in his murder case.
But that doesn’t mean the public defender’s office is out of the case.
Superior Court Judge Thomas V. O’Keefe Jr. told Dr. Wang (at right in photo) during a court hearing in New Haven yesterday that after Jeffrey LaPierre, his stand-by public defender, leaves for a military commitment in March, the judge will appoint an as yet unnamed special public defender, a criminal attorney from outside the public defender’s office.
The action to appoint a special public defender came after the judge held a 30-minute conference in his chambers with the attorneys in the case. Dr. Wang was not present.
Dr. Wang, 49, is accused of gunning down Dr. Vanjinder Toor, then a post-doctoral fellow at the Yale School of Medicine, outside Dr. Toor’s condo in Branford on April 26, 2010. He is charged with killing Dr. Toor, his former supervisor at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in New York. The two men had a workplace dispute that eventually led to Dr. Wang’s firing in 2008. Dr. Wang has been defending himself in drawn-out pre-trial proceedings for roughly four years. An ongoing unresolved issue: whether or not he can or should defend himself, or have a court-appointed lawyer.
Dr. Wang’s status conferences are held in open court because he wears two hats. He is both a defendant accused of murder and he is representing himself.
For the moment, no new trial date has been announced. A new and more detailed competency examination for Dr. Wang will begin Friday.
The judge acted after Dr. Wang made it clear he wanted nothing to do with the public defender’s office, which is now in the process of seeking to revoke Dr. Wang’s self-representation. Chief Public Defender Thomas Ullmann (standing at left in top photo) said he wants to take over the Wang case because Dr. Wang is mentally ill and unable to make the necessary decisions to mount a defense at his murder trial. Another possibility is that the special public defender gets the job full-time.
In court, the judge told Dr. Wang he will soon get a new stand-by attorney and “it appears that it will be a special public defender.”
“That pleases you, right?” the judge asked.
“Yes, your honor,” Dr. Wang replied.
Ullman said the voluminous filings filed by Wang over the years show that he suffers from a series of mental illnesses, including “delusions, persecution complex, paranoia ideation and obsessive compulsive behaviors.” Dr. Wang denied it. As for mounting a defense, Ullman said Dr. Wang’s mental incapacitation precludes him from employing “legitimate affirmative defenses in his case versus illegitimate justification defenses.”
Wang Responds To Ullmann
In a 39-page motion in which he responded to Ullmann’s decision to revoke his self-representation, Dr. Wang said Ullmann “had invaded the pro se defendant’s pro se right like a rapist who had illegally penetrated into the defendant against the victim’s will.” He also called Ullmann “incompetent and treacherous,” a description Ullmann rejected.
It wasn’t always this way. Previously Dr. Wang had articulated that he liked Ullmann and hoped he would take over as stand-by counsel when LaPierre left for military service. Whatever trust Dr. Wang had in Ullmann is now gone. He now feels betrayed, he said in numerous ways in this motion.
Dr. Wang has made it clear that in his view the public defender’s office, which is now paying for Dr. Wang’s experts, has delayed getting experts on board. At one point Dr. Wang pointed out the low fee the public defender’s office wanted to pay for an investigator, a key witness as far as the judge is concerned. The judge had said previously he would intervene if necessary.
Yesterday Dr. Wang told the judge he had made some progress in getting an investigator in the case. Ullmann provided the name of one to Dr. Wang. Dr. Wang met him and he said in court that the attorney was experienced. “I think I will go ahead with him,” he told the judge.
“Excellent,” the judge said. “That’s progress.” The judge has pressed for an investigator in order to get the trial moving.
Ullmann’s Position
Ullmann said in a recent motion to revoke his pro-se status that some of Dr. Wang’s motions “are rambling rants.” He called one of them, entitled “Don’t let the Devil Prevail, “a motion that recounts the wrongs alleged by Dr. Wang at the hands of Satan, KJMC (Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center) and Dr. Toor.”
In reading more than 235 motions filed by Dr. Wang with the court, Ullmann said, he has concluded that Dr. Wang is not mentally able to mount a trial, a process that requires articulating one defense over another, calling the best witnesses, understanding trial strategy and the role of his opponent, in this case, the state of Connecticut. Dr. Wang said he is capable of doing so.
This Competency Exam Is Different
Judge O’Keefe told Dr. Wang he understood well that “he [Ullmann] wants in and you want out.” That issue, the judge said, “would be easier for me to resolve once I have the results of the competency exam.” The judge ordered a competency examination of Dr. Wang earlier this month.
Judge O’Keefe who is away on vacation for the month of March expects to have the results of the competency examination in early April. Then he will hold a competency hearing on April 6, 7 and 8. The state will be involved in that process.
For the first time yesterday the judge explained to Dr. Wang that this competency hearing will be different from previous ones. “I have to examine this through a new lens,” the judge explained to Dr. Wang who stood in the well of the courtroom and listened. It is the judge who will decide if Dr. Wang is competent to handle his trial.
Dr. Wang was subdued and uncharacteristically quiet during his court appearance. “I have to be satisfied you can organize a case,” the judge told him as he has said in the past. He noted that Dr. Wang might present a defense “that is not in your interest.” So far Dr. Wang has not stated a defense though that issue has been raised often in court.
Ullmann said in his motion that allowing Dr. Wang to continue representing himself would be a violation of federal and state law. He observed there is a difference between a person being competent to stand trial and a person actually representing himself at trial. Ullmann cited a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the high court found one can be minimally competent to stand trial (that is, the defendant understands the charges against him and can assist his counsel) but can also lack “the mental capacity to conduct his trial defense unless represented.” In a separate case, the Connecticut State Supreme Court case came to the same conclusion.
The judge asked Dr. Wang to discuss these issues with LaPierre. “I will be happy to talk to LaPierre. I like him,” Dr. Wang said. To keep the case on track a status hearing will be held before Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford on March 19.
Prior Competency Exams in 2011
Dr. Wang underwent competency examinations in 2011 and after Judge Roland D. Fasano found he was competent to stand trial, Dr. Wang fired his public defenders and took over his representation himself. The standard for competency to stand trial is a low one. A defendant has to understand the charges the state brought against him and be able to assist counsel in his defense.
The public defender’s office hired its own psychiatrist back then who found Dr. Wang was not competent but Judge Fasano disagreed and granted Dr. Wang’s request to represent himself.
Since his last competency examination in 2011, Dr. Wang has said in a number of court filings that he does not believe Dr. Toor is the victim; he believes he is. He has also indicated he does not think Dr. Toor is dead, raising the issue of whether or not he understands the charges against him. He has questioned whether the autopsy performed on Dr. Toor was actually performed on the correct person.
At one point, Ullmann noted in his motion Dr. Wang submitted a motion entitled “Definition of Victim.” In this motion, he asserts that he is the victim because on May 22, 2008, he was wrongfully terminated because of “false accusations of Dr. Toor…”
Dr. Wang also addressed a recent letter sent by Dr. Toor’s brother, Tajinder Toor to Senior State’s Attorney Eugene Calistro, Jr., the prosecutor in the case. Tajindor Toor urged that the case finally go to trial. In response, Dr. Wang wrote a letter to the Toor family saying he and the Toor family were both victims of Kingsbrook Hospital. The letter became public.
According to his court papers, before Dr. Wang wrote the letter to the Toor family he consulted Ullmann, asking if it were appropriate to do so and saying he would not send the letter to the Toor family if Ullmann told him not to. Ullmann told him not to. He sent it anyway.
Meanwhile, Calistro listened carefully as the defense conflicts played out in court yesterday. This is not his issue. But he and the state have benefited from Dr. Wang’s most recent motions and letters. He learned information about potential witnesses, including Dr. Wang’s now ex-wife, which he might not have known had Wang understood what to include or not include in motions that are sent to the prosecutor.
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