Subu Vedam, exonerated after 43 years in prison, now faces deportation despite being a permanent U.S. resident since infancy (Photo: Pinterest)
Subramanyam or Subu Vedam spent more than forty years in prison for a crime he claimed he did not commit. The 64-year-old man was released on October 3, 2023, after a judge threw out his murder conviction he was immediately detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which seeks to deport him to India, a country he hardly remembers.
Vedam came to America from India when he was an infant and grew up in this country since then, nearly all of his adult life remained accounted for by prison time. He was convicted twice 1983 and 1988 for the 1980 killing of Thomas Kinser, a teenage classmate he had in high school. The prosecutors contended that Vedam had been the last individual seen in the company of Kinser, whose body had been found at the bottom of a sinkhole. Vedam never accepted guilt and would not accept any deals while he concentrated on clearing his name in court.
On August 2025, a judge in Centre County vacated the conviction of Vedam after it became evident that a recently withheld FBI report contradicted the prosecution's argument. The report highlighted the issue of the size of the bullet holes in Kinser's skull, a detail that counters claims as to the weapon utilized. The prosecutor dropped the charges, citing loss of witnesses and serious consequences of time.
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While in prison, Vedam made it his mission to educate and engage in service by means of correspondence programs, he earned three degrees including an MBA with an exceptional GPA graduating magna cum laude. He set up literacy projects and assisted fellow inmates in achieving their diplomas. At the release hearing, he had the distinction of being celebrated as the first state prisoner in over a century and a half to have completed graduate study while incarcerated.
Shortly after the legal exoneration, he was picked up by ICE and the agency claimed a long-ignored deportation order arising from his juvenile conviction for the distribution of LSD. The dormant deportation order, first imposed when he was handed life in prison, was now being invoked. The ICE huntsman claimed that Vedam was a professional criminal with decades long convictions Vedam's attorney argued that he was a youngster at the time when the drug conviction was handed down and the murder charges were completely overturned.
His lawyers are now asking the courts to reopen immigration proceedings, arguing that with all charges dismissed, this must weigh heavily in his favor. They argue that sending him back would worsen the egregiousness of expelling someone who left India as an infant to enter a life in the States.
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Vedam's family has come forth in a public appeal to have authorities intervene compassionately his sister noted how "he lived his imprisonment not in bitterness but in service to others." His niece reminded authorities that his only memories of India are from infancy and that all of his loved ones are in the U.S. The pain of losses in his life his mother passed away after years of visits every week to the prison and his father died years before.
For the Vedams, the last act of the justice system should not be to deport. After 43 years lost to a wrongful conviction, to deport would highlight the second injustice-to cast away a man to a place he cannot call home. They are now appealing not only for legal redress but a humanitarian exercise of discretion given the life rebuilt upon innocence.
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