Technically, Dr. Lishan Wang is Public Defender Jeffrey LaPierre’s client. Dr. Wang is on trial for murder.
But this week, when he took his seat in the state Superior Court courtroom where Dr. Wang’s murder case is being heard, LaPierre was not at his usual spot at the defense table.
Instead, LaPierre sat in the first row of the spectator’s section. He was distant from his client, but near enough to get up, walk into the well of the courtroom and answer his questions.
More precisely, LaPierre is Dr. Wang’s “stand-by” attorney. Dr. Wang is representing himself at his trial. LaPierre is there in case he needs help.
And he’s no longer literally standing or sitting right by Dr. Wang — which signals a legal development that may well alter the way this already unconventional murder trial develops.
The murder case of an incarcerated indigent defendant with no legal training who insists on representing himself has revealed a set of serious issues for the court system.
Dr. Wang is accused of shooting his former colleague, Dr. Vanjinder Toor, 34, as Dr. Toor emerged from his Branford condo on April 26, 2010.
Dr. Wang is also charged with shooting at Dr. Toor’s wife. He missed.
Dr. Wang had a workplace dispute with Dr. Toor at a Brooklyn hospital two years before. Court papers state that that dispute led to the end of his medical career. The prosecutor, Eugene R. Calistro, Jr. called the murder of Dr. Toor premeditated.
Dr. Wang is representing himself, having dismissed his full-time public defenders from the case ten months ago. In an effort to bring some legal order to the case Judge Roland D. Fasano, who presided over the case until September, agreed that Dr. Wang should have a stand-by attorney. Dr. Wang chose LaPierre, who was part of the original public defender’s team.
Typically “stand-by” means that a defense attorney will answer legal questions when needed. But as this case has evolved, it has required LaPierre go beyond this limited role. Increasingly he has been asked to do more, both by Judge Fasano and in recent weeks by the new judge in the case, Patrick J. Clifford. Both judges asked LaPierre to help Wang streamline his subpoena requests, requests that must be judicially approved in order to get the necessary documents and witnesses for trial.
Faced with ethical responsibilities as an attorney and the reality that he was doing more than he should for a client who had rejected the full services of the public defender’s office, LaPierre discussed his dilemma with the judge and Calistro during a 45-minute meeting in the judge’s chambers before a pretrial hearing in open court began Wednesday afternoon.
Slower-Than-Usual Wheels Of Justice
When LaPierre emerged from the judge’s chambers Wednesday and walked into the courtroom he went directly to the spectator section. With his change in seat, he made it clear he would stand by but stand back.
Dr. Wang, who was wearing his orange prison jump suit, was now alone at the defense table except for his Mandarin interpreter.
For months La Pierre has been in a legally awkward situation, wanting to help Dr. Wang and the judge on the subpoena issue but aware he was not permitted to go that far. With his decision to step back, LaPierre has left the bulk of the legal work to a defendant unskilled in drawing up the legal documents necessary to move the case to trial.
LaPierre’s stepping back is a major turning point in the murder case, as both the judge and Wang acknowledged it. Without more legal guidance, the case now seems to have reached a point of paralysis. Both judges in the case have expressed dismay and frustration with the inability of the court process to go forward. One other concern is how expert witnesses will be paid. Click here to read the story.
In open court, Dr. Wang told the judge that LaPierre’s “duties may be limited by the office of public defender.” Dr. Wang praised LaPierre for all the help he had given him.
The judge told Dr. Wang: “I am getting the same feeling. I agree with you. He can’t do what he said he was going to do.”
The judge observed that LaPierre had been put in an awkward “ethical position…We both expected more from him and we are not getting it.”
Dr. Wang told the judge: “Do you notice he is not sitting with me today?”
“I see that,” Judge Clifford replied.
Over the last five months, LaPierre has discussed helping Dr. Wang with his subpoenas, but “streamlining” did not occur. Dr. Wang continued to submit motions that were overbroad with no noticeable outside legal help. As a result the subpoenas could not be served to obtain necessary evidence for trial.
On Wednesday Judge Clifford denied most of Dr. Wang’s subpoenas motions, saying they were overbroad. The judge said the motions resembled a “fishing expedition.”
It appeared that some of the motions were aimed not at Dr. Wang’s defense in his criminal murder case in New Haven but instead were sought for his still pending civil case in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn against Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn.
“You can’t subpoena every record from the hospital and they’ll drive it here in a dump truck for you,” the judge said, his voice rising. Medical records, he noted, carry privacy and other restrictions. The judge also denied outright Wang’s request for Dr. Toor’s records when he worked at Kingsbrook.
“I don’t know why I’d allow a subpoena of the victim’s records. I just don’t see the relevance.”
After denying a number of motions, the judge sought ways around the difficulty of subpoenaing material from hospitals in New York, a process that is complicated by the need to have other attorneys in New York and to involve the New York courts.
At one point Calistro, who was trying to help expedite the legal process, suggested that he could get the medical records Dr. Wang sought if Dr. Wang signs a release form. Under this plan, the state would not see the records, just turn them over to Dr. Wang, the prosecutor said.
Dr. Wang told Judge Clifford that he would think about it. The judge repeatedly urged Dr. Wang to expedite the process by taking Calistro up on this idea.
In the end the judge got nowhere. Almost immediately Dr.Wang conceded after much discussion that in fact he had most of the medical documents in his possession anyway.
DVD ISSUE
The road blocks toward getting the discovery job done when a defendant is in prison became clear when Calistro handed Dr. Wang two DVDs, his final item in the state’s discovery that needed to be turned over to Dr. Wang.
The state gave all its information on the case to the public defender’s office well over a year ago, Calistro said. As it turned out, the public defender’s office has yet to turn over all of the information it received from the state to Dr. Wang.
The DVDs describe an encounter between Drs. Wang and Toor at Kingsbrook in 2008. As it turned out, the DVDs are emblematic of the problems faced in this case. First Calistro alerted Dr. Wang that the state’s attorney’s office was unable to find a computer program to open the DVDs so that they might be viewed.
Then LaPierre, entering the well of the courtroom, told the judge that if Wang leaves the courthouse with the DVDs they will be confiscated by prison guards.
“And what will happen to the DVDs?” the judge asked.
“They will be destroyed,” La Pierre answered.
“Better to send the DVDs via legal mail to the prison where Dr. Wang is housed,” La Pierre told the judge. So the decision was made to do so.
“We have gone nowhere,” the judge said. But then he noted that he had arranged to get photographs Xeroxed for the defendant and that the public defender agreed there would a binder for him with all the evidence still in the public defender’s hands. When the binder gets to Dr. Wang is still unclear.
The judge also tried several times during the court session to convince Dr.Wang to again be represented by the public defender’s office. “Your subpoenas have gone nowhere so far. It is not easy to subpoena things without an attorney,” he said. Then, exasperated, he said: “We’re spinning our wheels.”
But as in the past, Dr. Wang would not budge. The judge noted that with an attorney the case would be halfway through trial by now.
That argument did not work. Dr. Wang noted he is not a trained attorney. He said this is “too important” a case, for “my family, for me and ultimately for justice.”
That was precisely why, the judge said, “you should have an attorney. Don’t you see how difficult this is?”
At this point the indigent Dr. Wang, hands outstretched suggested another route: “What if I choose a private attorney?”
The judge asked: “Who pays for that?”
Dr.Wang replied: “the state.”
The judge again reminded Dr. Wang “that we have a public defender system.” Then he paused and as if he were thinking aloud, said: “Now maybe there could be a special public defender.”
There are instances where the public defender’s offices pays for outside counsel — for example, if there is a conflict between a defendant and the public defender’s office. The judge did not rule out the idea.
Not mentioned in court was the idea of getting a criminal defense attorney interested in a high publicity case to do the case pro bono.
The judge then asked the parties to consider the next court date.
“I’m available all the time,” Dr.Wang observed wryly.
The judge set Wed. Nov. 7 at 2 p.m.
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