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The United States Supreme Court today declined to review a Connecticut Supreme Court decision requiring that Dr. Lishan Wang be forcibly medicated in order to try to restore him to competency so he may stand trial for the murder of Dr. Vajinder Toor. Toor, a Yale University doctor, was 34 when he was killed.
Last September, the Connecticut’s Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, found that Dr. Wang should be forcibly medicated. Dr. Wang, 51, is charged with Dr. Toor’s murder outside the Meadows Condominiums on Blueberry Lane on April 26, 2010. He is also charged with attempted murder; he shot at Dr. Toor’s wife but missed.
The one-word decision today — “denied” — means that the Connecticut Supreme Court decision stands and that Dr. Wang, who is now a patient at the Whiting Forensic Institute, will be forcibly medicated.
The groundbreaking Wang case, now in its seventh year, has rattled the criminal justice system, testing the rules for how Connecticut prosecutes murders and when seemingly delusional people may serve as their own attorney. The case has also raised the question of how the state’s psychiatric hospitals are evaluating defendants faced with serious criminal charges who then go on to represent themselves. They must be deemed competent to stand trial to begin with, but how that finding is arrived at is now an issue.
Dr. Wang, who represented himself for a number of years at his hearings in New Haven Superior Court, is now represented by Thomas J. Ullmann, the chief New Haven Public Defender. Ullmann sought the petition for a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court in November after the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the state’s case. Since then, the public defender’s appeals bureau and the State’s Attorney’s appellate office submitted briefs to the nation’s high court.
Seeking a writ of certiorari before the nation’s highest court is a long shot because the state Supreme Court decision was unanimous, with none of the judges accepting the defense’s position that the forced medication raised a constitutional issue. The judges accepted the arguments put forth by Nancy Walker, who represented the state in the appeal.
Ullmann maintained that forced medication violates Dr. Wang’s rights and may hinder his ability to assist in his defense at trial. The defense has said in prior court hearings that the success rate of these drugs, between 50 and 70 percent, is not impressive.
Doctors from the Connecticut Valley Hospital, the state’s maximum security psychiatric hospital, have testified that a regular regimen of anti-psychotic drugs could help restore Wang to competency. Wang has refused to take medication on a voluntary basis.
The Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision found that Superior Court Judge Thomas V. O’Keefe, Jr., the trial judge, “applied the proper standards and that his findings were supported by clear and convincing evidence.” Today all the parties will return to Judge O’Keefe’s court room to discuss this latest development as well as a plan to oversee the forced medication.
Monitoring Forced Medication
In 2003, in what was a landmark decision, the United State Supreme Court imposed stringent limits on the right to forcibly medicate a criminal defendant who, like Dr. Wang had been deemed incompetent to stand trial for the sole purpose of making the defendant competent to stand trial. But in that case, “Sell v. United States,” the court also held there were factors in which forcible medication could be imposed.
Eugene R. Calistro, Jr., the senior assistant state’s attorney who has been handling this case since murder charges were first brought nearly seven years ago, argued at one court hearing in New Haven that forced medication was required and that the Wang case met the four factors outlined in Sell case. One of those factors says forced medication may be sought “if an important government interest is at stake.” In this case, that interest is the trial of Dr. Wang, Calistro said.
Calistro says a regular regimen of two antipsychotic drugs could help restore Wang, a former doctor, to competency. Psychiatrists who testified agreed.
Judge O’Keefe has previously reviewed and granted a defense request for an evidentiary hearing on how best to monitor the process for Dr. Wang’s forced medication. This topic will likely be raised at Wednesday’s hearing. Wang is expected to be present.
Ullmann previously asked Judge O’Keefe to establish “a monitoring protocol before, during and after the administration of psychotropic medication.” The motion noted possible side effects “whether the doses are administrated orally or by injection.”
Ullmann said in court papers that a court-ordered monitoring protocol “should be ordered to protect the defendant’s state and federal constitutional rights to
a fair trial as well as his individual bodily and medical integrity.”
Judge O’Keefe observed that it was not unreasonable for Dr. Wang’s attorneys to have some sort of monitoring procedure in place in order to determine possible side effects. “We will come up with a plan to make sure the health issues are addressed,” the judge told Ullmann and Calistro.
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