With Permission
Dr. Vanjinder Toor and son.
Saying it was “with great reluctance that I order this,” Superior Court Judge Thomas v. O’Keefe, Jr., today ordered Dr. Lishan Wang to be forcibly medicated so that he could be restored to competency and face trial on charges that he murdered Dr. Vanjinder Toor more than five years ago.
Dr. Wang was arrested in April 2010, and charged with the shooting death of Dr. Toor, a Yale doctor who previously had been Dr. Wang’s supervisor at a New York hospital. Dr. Wang believes Dr. Toor was responsible for his firing in 2008. Dr. Wang travelled from Georgia where he lived with wife and children to Branford and lay in wait for Dr. Toor as he left his Branford condo one morning. He is also accused of attempting to kill Dr. Toor’s wife, a probable cause hearing in the case has found.
The judge said in his view Dr. Wang has become decidedly more ill over the years, describing his mental state as fluctuating between paranoia, narcissism, depression, and delusional behavior. He has also been diagnosed with having unspecified schizophrenia spectrum. “He is extremely ill. We are trying to return him to competency. This is the only alternative. It is with great reluctance that I order this but I do order this,” he said, speaking from the bench.
Then as the court session ended, he handed the attorneys two letters he received from Dr. Wang in recent weeks. Commenting on their content, he said, “He is delusional. He says he is being persecuted. These letters make almost no sense.”
Appeal Sought
Although the judge ordered the forced medication, he immediately stayed his order for 20 days after Thomas Ullmann, the chief public defender and Dr. Wang’s court-appointed attorney, stood to seek a stay as the first step in a plan to appeal.
“I believe he is mentally ill. I intervened because of that,” Ullmann said, recounting his effort to remove Dr. Wang as his own attorney in his murder case and his efforts to re-open his prior competency status. But Ullmann also said that the forcible administration of psychotropic medication requires the state to meet a heavy burden, and in his view, the state had not succeeded. The judge said in his view the state had met the required legal standards, and he concurred with the prosecution.
After the judge’s detailed explanation of why he had ordered forced medication, Ullman sought the stay, saying, “I believe that Dr. Wang has the right to appeal. We have 20 days to appeal.” The next court date was set for Dec. 8. If the appeal goes forward, and it is expected that it will, then the next phase of this case may well take a year to resolve.
The judge accepted the arguments put forth by Eugene R. Calistro, Jr., the senior assistant state’s attorney who has been handling this case since murder charges were first brought against Dr. Wang in 2010.
The Prosecution Argument
Calistro argued in court and in a motion seeking forced medication that the four factors outlined in a case entitled “Sell v. United States,” were met in the Wang case. The Sell case was decided by the United State Supreme Court in 2003.
The first factor is that an important government interest is at stake. In this case, the government interest centers on the state’s charges against Dr. Wang, who is accused of a serious crime the state wants to try him for. The state also maintains that the involuntary medication (and Dr. Wang has said he will not voluntarily take the medicine because he does not believe he is ill) is “substantially likely” to render the defendant competent to stand trial and substantially unlikely to have side effects that will interfere with his ability to assist counsel at trial. Calistro also pointed out in court that over the years Dr. Wang has not cooperated with any medical tests except he has agreed to urine samples – though not blood samples – while at Whiting.
Calistro noted that Dr. Wang has been at Whiting for over a year with no progress having been made toward becoming mentally competent. During the court hearing, Dr. Wang, dressed in a grey sweatpants outfit, held his head in his hands, occasionally rocking back and forth. He seemed disengaged from the court process. When the hearing was over, however, he could be heard speaking to Ullmann.
The Defense Argument
Ullmann’s major argument was that despite a hearing and testimony from those who have examined Dr. Wang at the Whiting Forensic Institute, “nowhere is there a statement that to a reasonable degree of certainty that he will be restored to competency.” He also raised issues about possible side effects of the drugs. Calistro countered that Dr. Wang would be hospitalized for the process and observed 24/7 for the existence of serious side effects.
“That information would immediately be brought to the Court’s attention prior to trial or hearing, which would ensure fairness to Dr. Wang in moving forward in the restoration process with the ultimate goal to receive a fair trial,” Calistro said of the monitoring process.
Ullmann cited another case, this one decided by a Connecticut Superior Court in 2014. The “State v. Holden” case involved Dr. Mark S. Cotterell at Whiting, the psychiatrist who interviewed Dr. Wang and testified at a recent Wang court hearing. In the Holden case, Dr. Cotterell recommended two anti-psychotic drugs but Dr. Cotterell “was unable to say with any certainty” that the defendant would be restored to competency if medicated. The superior court found Dr. Cotterell’s testimony insufficient and found the state had not met its burden in seeking forced medication, Ullmann wrote in his memorandum of law.
Competency is based on a defendant’s ability to understand the charges against him and to assist counsel at trial. It is separate from a trial defense of, say, extreme emotional disturbance or mental illness. Dr. Wang has not yet announced his defense.
The Judge’s Findings
The judge told the court that he was experienced in mental competency cases, having heard hundreds of them over his years. He did note that at the outset of taking the case as the trial judge he was optimistic the long-delayed trial would go forward.
He said prior to the most recent competency hearing, he was surprised that he was not able “to make any progress toward the beginning of a trial. Quite frankly this surprised me because my initial impression is that Dr. Wang was respectful, intelligent and co-operative and doesn’t fit the image” of someone with mental competency issues. “He is a rare case.”
He said as he came to understand Dr. Wang, he began to realize “that I couldn’t get a simple answer to the basics of the case. I came to understand
that he was unable to participate in the process and that is why he is here. He could not answer the questions necessary for a trial. A trial is a progression. Questions could not be answered…. After months and months…I was no longer further along than the day I got the case.”
The judge noted that he had considered all the psychiatric reports recently given to the court along with the recent court testimony, including that of a health guardian he appointed and Dr. Cotterell at Whiting. All agreed that Dr. Wang suffers from serious mental illnesses and all agreed that forced medication is the correct decision. (Dr. Wang takes issue with Dr. Cotterell’s current findings of his mental state saying his report “needs to be compared to the reports he had produced in 2010, 2011 and June 2015 and Dr. Wang’s mental health.”)
“We are trying to return him to competency. This is the only alternative,” the judge said.
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