Dr. Wang Pleads Guilty To Killing Dr. Toor

In a dramatic turn of events, Dr. Lishan Wang pleaded guilty in Superior Court on Church Street Friday morning to killing his former colleague Dr. Vajinder Toor outside his Branford condominium on the morning of April 26, 2010 as Dr. Toor left for work at Yale Medical School. Dr. Toor was 34 when he was gunned down.

Dr. Wang faces up to 32 years in prison, plus five years of special probation when he is sentenced on Sept. 22.

A combination of factors led to the plea, including the complexity of the case along with potential lengthy appeals, a potential insanity defense, witness availability given the length of the case and Dr. Wang’s slow return to mental stability under forced medication, a development that might not be permanent. Overall, the case has rattled the criminal justice system.

His decision to plead guilty via a nolo contendre plea to four major charges ends a long and unusual legal odyssey, one that has lasted for seven years and has raised serious questions about when seemingly delusional people may serve as their own attorney. Dr. Wang is now 51.

Dr. Wang is accused of waiting for and then gunning down Dr. Toor as Dr. Toor left for New Haven in the morning to go to work. Dr. Toor was Dr. Wang’s 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 held Dr. Toor responsible for ruining his medical career. Dr. Wang was also accused of attempting to kill Dr. Toor’s wife, as she rushed outside, hearing gunshots.

Eugene Calistro, Jr., the senior state’s attorney (pictured) in charge of the case since the outset, said after the court session that the nolo route was used in order to prevent Dr. Wang’s criminal conviction from being used against him in several civil cases now pending in state and federal court in Connecticut and in New York. Under a nolo plea, a defendant in a criminal prosecution accepts conviction as though a guilty plea had been entered but does not admit guilt.

Wearing a grey sweat suit and sneakers, Dr. Wang stood between his public defenders, Thomas V. Ullmann, the chief public defender and assistant public defender Angelica Papastavros.

The impetus for the plea came from Ullmann, who has represented Dr. Wang for the past two years. Ullmann successfully moved to have Superior Court Judge Thomas V. O’Keefe, Jr. remove Dr. Wang’s right to represent himself. On Monday, Judge O’Keefe ruled that while Dr. Wang was competent to stand trial, he was not competent to represent himself. Click here to read the story. 

Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford who oversaw the Wang case when it was sent to the Connecticut Supreme Court on witness funding issues, presided over the plea hearing. Dr. Wang was alert during the 40 minute court appearance in Judge Clifford’s courtroom.

A Reduced Sentence

Judge Clifford asked Dr. Wang if he understood the nature of his plea. With this agreement with the state, the judge said, he will not face 70 years in prison, but 32 years in prison plus five years of special probation. Special probation is designed to create a tighter rein on a person once he is released from prison.

“Is this your understanding of the agreement,” the judge asked. ​“Yes,” Dr. Wang replied. The judge also noted that Dr. Wang would receive credit for his current incarceration, an incarceration that has lasted seven years pending trial or an agreement to plead. This brings the projected sentence down to 25 years.

Judge Clifford also asked Dr. Wang if he understood that absent being a citizen of the United States, his plea may have consequences regarding deportation.

“Yes,” Dr. Wang replied.

The judge asked Ullmann if he had discussed immigration consequences with Dr. Wang.

“Yes, we have.”

While deportation might upset some defendants, Dr. Wang might well want to return to China, his native country, when he finishes his time in prison.

Calistro described the history of the case for the record, noting the case was now seven years old. Over this period of time, Dr. Wang had filed over 400 motions in his case. The case went twice to the Connecticut Supreme Court, most recently when the high court ruled Dr. Wang could be forcibly medicated.Ullmann also appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but his appeal was denied. It turns out that the anti-psychotic drugs administered against his will are working. Whether he receives them when sent to prison is another question.

Manslaughter Factors

In agreeing to a plea, Dr. Wang pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree. Manslaughter in the first degree permits a defendant to plead guilty under circumstances which do not constitute murder per se because the act was committed under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance, a mitigating circumstance reducing murder to manslaughter. 

The Wang case has raised the question of how the state’s psychiatric hospitals are evaluating defendants who must be deemed competent to stand trial to begin with. What this case shows is that a defendant may have serious psychotic disorders and still be deemed mentally competent to stand trial and to represent himself, a disconnect that needs to be examined by both psychiatric hospitals and the judiciary. 

Are state psychiatrists probing deeply or not at all? Is the standard too low? This is especially relevant if a defendant intends to represent himself, mount a trial and take charge of the nature of his defense.

Earlier this week, Judge O’Keefe ruled that while Dr. Wang was mentally competent to stand trial, he was not capable of representing himself.

“I am convinced that if allowed to represent himself, he would return to a state of (mental) incompetence,” Judge O’Keefe said in court. ​“I am going to deny the motion for self- representation,” he said, adding that he did not disagree with the conclusions offered by hospital and outside psychiatrists that Dr. Wang is competent to stand trial. 

Dr. Wang’s groundbreaking murder case has been awaiting trial or a decision to enter a plea for seven years, one month and 15 days, in large part because he was granted the right to act as his attorney by Superior Court Judge Roland Fasano in December, 2011. At the time Judge Fasano said Dr. Wang is ​“highly intelligent” and ​“highly capable” to undertake his defense.

Looking back over the arc of the case, Calistro described the underlying reality. ​“The problem with this case was that trial was just around the corner but it was never getting to trial.”

Subsequent judges have agreed about Dr. Wang’s intelligence but not about his ability to defend himself in a court of law. It would turn out that Judge Fasano’s decision to let Dr. Wang represent himself led the case into legal paralysis over the next four years because Dr. Wang’s underlying mental condition made it impossible for him to represent himself.

The case has also raised the question of how the state’s primary psychiatric hospital, Connecticut Valley, is evaluating defendants who must be deemed competent to stand trial to begin with. Competency has nothing to do with a defense of extreme emotional disorder or an insanity defense. So while a defendant may learn the ins and outs of how to prepare for competency, usually at the direction of hospital staff, that does not mean his underlying mental condition is examined or taken into consideration. 

To be deemed competent to stand trial the defendant must show he understands the charges against him and can assist his attorney at trial. At various points in the Wang case — after he was allowed to defend himself — he said he would not share information with his attorneys because he did not trust them. He also said he did not believe Dr. Toor was dead. Nonetheless he was deemed competent by a hospital psychiatrist on several occasions. Judge Fasano relied on the psychiatric testimony when he ruled Dr. Wang could represent himself. 

It would take four years before Judge’s Fasano’s ruling to allow Dr. Wang to represent himself could be undone. That moment came in February 2015 when, in a bombshell development, Ullmann, the chief public defender, asked that Wang’s status to represent himself at trial be removed.

Judge O’Keefe had attempted to get the Wang case ready for trial but Dr. Wang’s numerous motions to the court indicated he was mentally unstable. The motions ultimately caused Ullmann to take the steps to remove his right to represent himself.

For example, in one motion, filed in September 2012, and heard by Judge Clifford back then, Dr. Wang drew a comparison between himself and James Holmes, who was charged with a massacre of people attending a Batman movie showing in Aurora, Colorado. Dr. Wang argued his motion that the media had no photo of Holmes in shackles and handcuffs as Dr. Wang has been photographed at his arraignment. Why? Because according to Dr. Wang, Holmes ​“was carefully protected based on the skin color and national origin.

Judge Clifford then that he did not think there ​“is any discrimination at all.” He rejected his motion, one of many based on delusional thinking. 
The judge sought to explain to Dr. Wang that when he was first arrested on April 26, 2010, on charges he shot Dr. Toor, he was brought into Superior Court on a public street in New Haven, where the press had gathered. They were permitted to photograph him. Similarly, at his arraignment, the press had permission to photograph him.

An Important Letter

Dr. Wang often made mistakes in filing his court papers, including giving information to the prosecutor. In one instance Dr. Wang discussed a letter which he wrote to a Brooklyn federal judge in the aftermath of his firing from Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in 2008. The letter turned out to show the motive for the Toor murder. It was a work place dispute.

In the letter, Dr. Wang claims that ​“Dr. Vajinder Toor had fabricated many details about what has happened on May 15, 2008, in order to justify the
defendant’s ( the hospital) false accusation against me.” That incident along with others led to Dr. Wang’s firing and to the end to his medical career.

The letter is dated April 20, 2010, six days before Dr. Wang is charged with gunning down Dr.Toor outside his Branford condo.
Police found the letter in Dr. Toor’s van, which he drove from Georgia to the Branford condo where Dr. Toor lived with his wife and three-year-old son.

Calistro noted in court yesterday that police found three hand guns and 1,000 rounds of ammunition in Dr. Wang’s van. They also found directions to the homes of two other employees at Kingsbrook whom Dr. Wang felt were responsible for his termination.

Dr. Wang sent his letter to Chief Magistrate Judge Steven M. Gold in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where Dr. Wang’s civil case against the hospital is filed. At the time Dr. Wang lived in Marietta, Ga., with his wife and three children. Dr. Wang’ wife subsequently divorced him.
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