The news that Subu Vedam was grabbed by immigration authorities on the very day he was to be released from prison came as a shock to many of us who had supported his decades-long quest to clear his name.
We had imagined him walking away from the brick walls and razor wire fences of the state prison at Huntingdon thinking he was home free, only to be shoved into an ICE van and whisked away to another fenced-in compound. It sounded excruciating.
We imagined that the Moshannon Valley Processing Center would be even worse than SCI Huntingdon.
At Huntingdon, he had his own cell and his own possessions. At Moshannon Valley, he would be in a 60-bed dormitory.
At Huntingdon, he was known and respected by guards and inmates alike. At Moshannon Valley, he would be another anonymous noncitizen.
It is, in fact, hugely disappointing and demoralizing that after 43 years in prison, and after a judge overturned the verdicts of juries that twice found him guilty of murdering Thomas Kinser, Subu Vedam remains in custody.
But I have learned that events did not play out quite as horrifically as many of us thought they did. Subu never walked out of Huntingdon a free man. Officers entered the prison and escorted him to a car that took him to SCI Benner Township, the prison nextdoor to Rockview. From there, ICE agents took him to Moshannon Valley.
What’s the difference? Only that Subu’s experience that day was less of a gut punch than we thought it was. He and those closest to him knew this might happen. They knew that as a noncitizen convicted of a felony, he was subject to a long-standing deportation order. His exoneration didn’t make that order magically disappear: It would have to be formally rescinded by a judge.
None of this, I’m told, was unusual, or any different from what might have happened during the presidencies of any of Donald Trump’s predecessors.
Complicating matters is that Subu had pleaded no contest to a drug charge around the same time he was charged with Tom Kinser’s murder. Though the murder charge is gone, the drug felony remains.
The idea that Subu’s involvement with drugs in the early 1980s makes him a “career criminal,” in ICE’s estimation, is, of course, preposterous: He was 21 when he went to prison — not much time to forge a career.
But the allegation must be fought in court. His immigration attorney will be able to argue, incontrovertibly, that far from being a career criminal, Subu’s conduct during his four decades in prison was exemplary.
As for conditions at Moshannon Valley, in some ways they’re better than at Huntingdon. He can make phone calls whenever he likes. His uniform consists of a polo shirt, slacks and sneakers – clothes you wouldn’t look twice at on the street. You can’t say that of the DOC-emblazoned jumpsuits and yellow Crocs they wear at Huntingdon.
And Subu being Subu, with his enormous curiosity about the world, he has enjoyed meeting his fellow detainees from Nepal, Mauritius, Eritrea and elsewhere whose only crime, in many cases, was living in the United States past the expiration of their visas.
Above all, a gigantic weight has been lifted from Subu’s shoulders: He’s no longer a convicted murderer serving a life sentence. His is now an immigration case, not a criminal case – and a famous one, at that. His story has been reported by the BBC, the Guardian, USA Today, the Associated Press and the Times of India, among other major news outlets.
Last week, ICE shipped Subu to its facility in Louisiana, intending to deport him to India. Subu’s immigration attorney won a stay. So now he’s back in Philipsburg, awaiting his hearing at the Board of Immigration Appeals.
No question about it, Subu’s detention by ICE is a setback, but it’s infinitely better than the three other outcomes he could have been facing after Judge Jonathan Grine heard his petition for post-conviction relief: Judge Grine could have rejected the petition and let Subu’s conviction stand. Or, after Judge Grine overturned his conviction, District Attorney Bernie Cantorna could have appealed that decision – or begun preparing for a new trial.
None of those things happened. The euphoria that Subu and his family felt when his release was imminent has not worn off.
Yes, it’s maddening that a guy who has waited 43 years for justice has to wait a little longer. Subu is 64. He has spent two-third of his life inside razor-wire fences. Time is always precious, but trust me, when you hit your 60s, it becomes more so.
Irvin Moore, who spent 52 of his 79 years in prison, tells me that lifers stay sane by never losing hope that some way, somehow, they will find a way to “go home.”
Home for Subu is now tantalizingly close, but I suspect by now he has learned how to wait.
