After a deportation fight focused on how much a decades-old criminal case can continue to matter, an immigration judge on Thursday cleared the way for the potential release of Subramanyam Vedam, an Indian citizen held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after a Pennsylvania murder conviction was overturned.
Vedam, 64, participated remotely in a hearing the day before from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. During that four-hour proceeding, he insisted he did not fatally shoot Thomas Kinser in 1980, according to the judge’s questions and the arguments presented by the government and Vedam’s attorney. The judge then ruled Thursday that Vedam had met the standard the immigration court applies to determine whether he could be released rather than removed.
“I was young and stupid and did a lot of dumb things back then,” Vedam said during the hearing, as he described his past. The Associated Press reported that the judge found Vedam had changed since the time of the underlying case and concluded he did not pose a danger to the public.
Immigration Judge Adam Panopoulos said Vedam “has grown as a person” and “began to dedicate himself to enriching other people’s lives and ultimately his own through academic study and enrichment,” according to the court’s statement reported by AP. The judge also cited Vedam’s efforts to improve literacy among inmates and the strength of his family ties, including nieces who have never known him as a free man.
The government, through a DHS lawyer, argued that the deportation case did not end just because the murder conviction was vacated. During the Wednesday hearing, the DHS lawyer questioned Vedam about other arrests and offenses, including driving under the influence and theft-related allegations, and pressed on whether Vedam’s conduct showed he still should be removed.
In a statement emailed Thursday, the department said vacating one conviction would not stop ICE’s enforcement of federal immigration law. The Associated Press reported that the DHS position was that Vedam still could be deported based on other convictions, even though his murder conviction had been overturned.
Vedam is known as Subu and was born in Mumbai, India, before coming to the United States as an infant. The court record described by AP says he grew up in State College, Pennsylvania, where his father was a physics professor, and that he was a legal permanent resident who was days away from becoming a naturalized citizen when ICE took him into custody.
According to AP, Vedam had been behind bars since March 31, 1982, and his criminal case traces back to Kinser’s disappearance in December 1980, when Kinser was last seen alive after taking Vedam to buy drugs. Kinser’s van was found outside an apartment in State College, and more than nine months later hikers discovered Kinser’s remains in a sinkhole miles away; the gun was never found.
The judge’s ruling came after the prosecutor in State College declined to retry Vedam late last year, following a Centre County judge’s determination that ballistics evidence was not disclosed by prosecutors during Vedam’s two trials. AP reported that Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said in an Oct. 2 release that a third trial would be difficult because of the passage of time, and that he also cited what he called “the reality that 44 years is a sufficient sentence for a murder committed by someone who was nineteen years old.”
Vedam told the immigration judge that he turned down plea bargain offers during his first trial and that similar overtures were made during a retrial, AP reported. He also told the judge he never stopped saying he was innocent of the murder charge, and the immigration judge’s conclusion Thursday hinged on what Panopoulos described as rehabilitation and community ties rather than on the vacated conviction alone.
After Thursday’s decision, Vedam’s attorney, Ava Benach, indicated she plans to seek his release on bond. Benach told the court that Vedam hopes to live with a relative in Sacramento, California, and that he has been offered a spot in Oregon State University’s doctoral program in applied anthropology, according to AP.
Homeland Security has a month to appeal the immigration judge’s ruling, the Associated Press reported.