Dr. Lishan Wang: ‘I am competent’ for trial in Branford murder case

NEW HAVEN >> Dr. Lishan Wang is objecting to the possibility he could be forced to take anti-psychotic medication in an effort to put him on trial on murder and other charges.

Wang, who on Sept. 14 was found incompetent to stand trial by Superior Court Judge Thomas V. O’Keefe Jr., also says he disagrees with that ruling.

“I believe I am competent to stand trial,” Wang wrote in a letter he sent to the New Haven Register from Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown, where he is being held.

“I just want the case to move forward without this ‘competency nonsense,’” Wang added.

He also wrote, “The illegal medication will compromise my mental status and my capability to testify or cross-examine the witnesses at the trial.”

“I need help from the outside world to fight this injustice of ‘trial with medication’ and ‘mental torture,’” Wang added. “As a defendant, I am innocent until proven guilty. And I am protected by the U.S. Constitution and 14th Amendment.” (That amendment specifies equal protection under the law and the right to life, liberty and property.)

Wang’s attorney, New Haven Chief Public Defender Thomas Ullmann, when told about the letter Monday, said he had no comment.

In the letter, Wang said “definitely there is no need for any medication.” He complained that during the Sept. 14 hearing, in which a doctor from Whiting testified Wang is sometimes delusional and meets some of the criteria for a paranoid personality disorder, Ullmann did not call any experts to counter the Whiting team’s findings.

Wang wrote that the Whiting report “is full of untruthful statements” and “character assassination.”

A series of judges have sought to move Wang’s case forward since he was arrested April 26, 2010, on a charge of murdering Dr. Vajinder Toor outside his Branford condominium on that day. Wang also was charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting toward Toor’s wife. He also faces weapons counts.

The case has been slowed by Wang’s insistence that he act as his own attorney. But last April, when O’Keefe first ruled Wang was not competent to stand trial, the judge also ruled Wang could no longer represent himself. Over Wang’s objection, O’Keefe appointed Ullmann to be his attorney.

During the Sept. 14 hearing, O’Keefe appointed a health care guardian for Wang to recommend whether anti-psychotic drugs should be administered to him against his will. O’Keefe cited a state law that “under some circumstances, as in this case, allows for involuntary medication.”

The health care guardian, Dr. Gail Sicilia, was ordered to file a report within 30 days as to whether she recommends the medication be administered.

During the September hearing, Ullmann said he and Wang object to any attempt to force the medication on Wang.

Toor, 34, was a postgraduate fellow at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He and Wang, now 49, worked together at a hospital in Brooklyn, New York, from which Wang was fired in May 2008. Wang has charged Toor played a role in that dismissal and that it ruined his career.

Wang has continued to file legal motions, although the Whiting staff has told him Ullmann is the one who should be doing so, if Ullmann believes it’s necessary.

In one of his recent motions, Wang again sought to be allowed to represent himself.

In a supplemental memorandum to that motion, Wang added news clippings from other criminal cases in a bid to support his arguments. One of the clippings was from the trial of Frazier Glenn Miller, a white supremacist who represented himself on charges he killed three people outside Jewish sites in suburban Kansas City. He was convicted of murder and other charges by a jury that deliberated for just over two hours. On Sept. 8, the jury recommended he receive the death penalty.

In his memorandum, dated Sept. 1, Wang wrote that Miller, 74, “is old and has behaved erractically and unprofesionally at the court. The court still allows him to represent himself. Compared to Miller, the defendant Mr. Wang is much younger, better educated and innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Wang said he has filed a complaint about an “abusive” staff member at Whiting. Wang wrote: “The complaint he wrote demonstrates that Mr. Wang is rational, good at reasoning, objective, good at conducting an investigation and forgiving to his abusers.”

Wang also enclosed with his motion a news clipping stating that 46 women have accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual abuse. Wang wrote, “Both Dr. Toor and Mr. Bill Cosby were an abuser and lawbreaker for a very long time. However, many people wanted to defend them, protect them and to blame their victims. It just proves that this is an upside down world.”

Wang added: “Their victims are not insane; the courts and/or the society are insane! Both the courts and the society are desperately protecting Dr. Toor and Mr. Cosby’s skeletons in their closets because both of them are parts of this hypocritical world: the wicked prosper; the innocent are ruined.”

On the lead page of his memorandum, Wang included a horoscope for an Aquarius (he is one, born Jan. 23, 1966). It reads: “It’s time to focus on what you need, Aquarius. This could be at total odds with everyone else around you, so just let them know you’re doing it for the betterment of everyone. They will understand.”

Call Randall Beach at 203-680-9345.