nothin New Haven Independent | Wang Appeals Forced Meds Ruling

Wang Appeals Forced Meds Ruling

With Permission

Dr. Vanjinder Toor and son.

Dr. Lishan Wang has formally filed an appeal seeking to overturn a decision by a Connecticut Superior Court judge that he be forcibly medicated. The appeal will delay any forced medication that the state hoped would help restore Dr. Wang to mental competency so that he can stand trial for the murder of Dr. Vanjinder Toor in 2010.

Superior Court Judge Thomas v. O’Keefe, Jr., the trial judge, made the formal announcement of the appeal in his 6th floor courtroom on Church Street in New Haven at 10 a.m. today. Angelica Papastavros, an assistant public defender, was in court. So was Eugene R. Calistro, Jr., the senior assistant state’s attorney in charge of the state’s case.

But Dr. Wang, who is currently housed at Connecticut Valley Hospital, was not. There was no explanation as to why Dr. Wang had not been brought to court; both attorneys were surprised not to find him there. So was the judge.

Dr. Wang was arrested on April 26, 2010, and charged with the shooting death of Dr. Toor, 34, 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 traveled from Georgia where he lived with wife and children to Branford and lay in wait for Dr. Toor as he left his Branford condo for his commute to Yale that morning. He is also accused of attempting to kill Dr. Toor’s wife outside the couple’s home in the Meadows condominiums.

The public defender’s formal filing of an appeal on Dr. Wang’s behalf means that Dr. Wang will not be forcibly medicated while the appeal takes its legal course. Dr. Wang, now 49, is now at Connecticut Valley Hospital where he resides in the Whiting Forensic Institute, one of the units of the hospital.

Judge O’Keefe ordered the forced medication at a hearing on Nov. 18. He immediately stayed his order for 20 days after Thomas Ullmann, the chief public defender and now Dr. Wang’s court-appointed attorney, asked to stay the order, saying his office was considering an appeal.

In court today, Judge O’Keefe formally announced that there is going to be an appeal.” No briefs have been filed, but the public defender’s office wrote in court papers that an interlocutory appeal would be undertaken on whether the state can force the defendant to take medication to make him competent.” 

The Tolling Issue

Calistro next raised an issue that in recent weeks has come into play. 

Under state law, a defendant must be restored to mental competency within 18 months or the case is sent to Probate Court for a civil commitment. This would mean the state reviews Dr. Wang’s status every six months in order to determine if he is ready for trial. There is no statute of limitation on a murder charge.

Taking into account Dr. Wang’s first competency hospitalization in 2010 and 2011 and his second most recent one, he has spent 366 days or more than one year in a state of incompetency, Calistro has previously stated in court. 

So the calendar is moving and state officials have taken notice. 

In recent court sessions, Calistro put on the record the issue of tolling, or not counting the appeal time against the 18-month deadline. 

Today, Calistro asked that Judge O’Rourke approve a time frame that from today’s date until the post appellate decision court date, a date as yet uncertain but likely to be at least a year, not be counted against the 18-month deadline.

Papastavros objected, asking the judge to delay his decision on tolling until Dr. Wang appeared in court. I think he should be present,” she said.

At first, Judge O’Keefe denied her motion but then he thought about it for a few minutes. Why take a chance down the road?” he said, indicating he wanted to avoid an appellate issue. The judge then asked that Dr. Wang be brought to court on Dec. 21.

Afterwards Papastavros told reporters that the public defender’s office might well have another point of view on the tolling” issue. She said that Ullmann, who was giving a summation in another trial this morning, would be in court on Dec. 21.

The Dec. 21 hearing may well be the last hearing in Judge O’Rourke’s courtroom for a while. The appeals bureaus for both sides in this case will handle the case, which will be argued before the state’s appellate court.

I believe he is mentally ill. I intervened because of that,” Ullmann said in November, 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 Calistro and the testimony of a health guardian appointed in the case and the doctors handling the case at the Whiting Institute.

In deciding to order forced medication, the judge said in court last month that 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.” 
###

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

There were no comments