Imagine spending 43 years in prison, trying to clear your name in a friend’s killing. That’s exactly what happened to Subramanyam Vedam, per the Associated Press. He spent more than four decades locked up before officials finally overturned his conviction. This month, he was set to walk free from a Pennsylvania prison. Now, with the climate of the U.S. under President Trump, it’s looking like deportation is his only option.
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More Details About Subramanyam Vedam’s Overturned Conviction
In August, a judge threw out a murder conviction against Vedam in the death of Thomas Kinser. Vedam and Kinser were 19-year-old friends with parents on the Penn State faculty when Kinser went missing.
One day in December 1980, Vedem asked Kinser for a ride to nearby Lewisburg to buy drugs. Kinser was never seen again, and Vedam was the last person seen with him. Kinser’s van was later found outside his State College apartment. Nine months later, hikers found his body in a wooded area miles away.
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While police investigated, they detained Vedam on drug charges. Ultimately, prosecutors charged him with murder. He was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to life without parole. To resolve the drug case, he pleaded no contest to four counts of selling LSD and a theft charge. Still, his 1988 retrial for the murder didn’t go any better.
Defense had previously questioned ballistics evidence in case. The jury had heard Vedam bought a .25-caliber gun from someone. However, they never heard that an FBI report suggested the bullet wound was too small to have been fired from his gun. Gopal Balachandran, the Penn State Dickinson Law professor who won the conviction reversal, only found the FBI report after digging into the case in 2023.
After hearings on the issue, a Centre County judge threw out the conviction. Additionally, the district attorney decided this month not to retry the case.
Why Is Vedam Facing Deportation?
After the overturned conviction, Vedam’s sister Saraswathi Vedam prepared to bring him home on Oct. 3. However, officials took the now thin, white-haired Vedam into federal custody over a 1999 deportation order.
The 64-year-old legally came to the U.S. from India when he was 9 months old. Now, he faces another legal fight. Saraswathi Vedam is saddened by the latest delay in her brother’s release. However, she said her brother remains patient.
“He, more than anybody else, knows that sometimes things don’t make sense,” she said. “You have to just stay the course and keep hoping that truth and justice and compassion and kindness will win.”
It’s no secret that the Trump Administration is laser-focused on mass deportations. With that in mind, Vedam’s lawyers must convince an immigration court that wrongly spending 43 years in prison outweighs his 1980s drug conviction. For a time, immigration law allowed people who had reformed their lives to seek such waivers. Vedam never pursued it then because of the murder conviction.
“He was someone who’s suffered a profound injustice,” said immigration lawyer Ava Benach. “(And) those 43 years aren’t a blank slate. He lived a remarkable experience in prison.”
Vedam earned several degrees behind bars. Also, he tutored hundreds of fellow inmates and went nearly half a century with just a single infraction. That infraction involved rice brought in from the outside. His lawyers hope immigration judges will consider the totality of his case.
Trump Administration Wants To Send Vedam Back To India
In the latest update, the Trump administration filed a brief filed Friday (October 24). It is opposing efforts to keep Subramanyam Vedam in the U.S. So, despite waiting 43 years to walk free, Vedam is stuck at an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in central Pennsylvania.
“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email about the case.
Ava Benach, the immigration lawyer, often represents clients trying to stay in the U.S. despite an earlier infraction. Still, she finds the Vedam case “truly extraordinary” given the constitutional violations involved.
“Forty-three years of wrongful imprisonment more than makes up for the possession with intent to distribute LSD when he was 20 years old,” she said.
Vedam could spend several more months in custody before the Board of Immigration Appeals decides whether to reopen the case. ICE officials, in a brief Friday, said the clock ran out years ago. “He has provided no evidence nor argument to show he has been diligent in pursuing his rights as it pertains to his immigration status,” Katherine B. Frisch, an assistant chief counsel, wrote.
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Associated Press reporter Maryclaire Dale contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
