On March 28, 2023, a prison guard was waiting outside a room in Rhode Island Hospital. The cogs of justice had been churning in the background for weeks, and the day had arrived: after months of being denied bail, Carol Pona was being released from Rhode Island Department of Corrections custody.
But Pona would die in the same hospital bed approximately six hours later.
On the same day, a little less than two miles away, lawmakers would meet in a Senate committee to weigh a new bill that could overhaul the very measure that saw Pona locked up in the first place.
As she lay dying, the 64-year-old was being held under a Rhode Island court rule that allows judges discretion when deciding whether people who allegedly violate probation can be granted release on bail. It’s a rule advocates are trying to change.
Public defenders say despite ‘judicial discretion,’ very few people who violate probation get released on bail
Approximately three months earlier, Carol Pona was living in Pawtucket. She spent a normal Christmas with some of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Just a few days after that, she was arrested on a robbery charge.
Pona and her brother were accused of stealing $202 from a bank. They were charged with the same crime. He was released on bail. Pona would have been, too, but because she was serving out her final years of a 20-year probation, the judge held her without bail. Pona was then sent to the Gloria McDonald’s correctional facility in Warwick, where she began to get sick.
Rhode Island’s probation rate is nearly double the national average
Carol Pona’s bail denial is not unique. Under the rule, called 32F, judges hold people who violate probation without bail 85% of the time, estimates the non-profit Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE).
Two former Rhode Island Assistant Public Defenders say that rate used to be even higher. Attorneys John Karwashan and Maggie Chung say they usually represented around 40-50 people who allegedly violated probation each week. Nearly all were denied bail.
“In one week, you might get one or two people,” Chung said. “I had to step away, because I felt like the injustice was outweighing what little glimmers of hope I would have in successes. It just wasn’t enough for me.”
Rhode Island ranks third highest in the country for percentage of the population on probation, according to a 2020 study from the United State Department of Justice. Its rate is about two times the national average. Some activists grimly joke that in Rhode Island, you come for vacation and leave on probation.
All the alleged probation violations come with a price tag. According to data from RIDOC, in 2022, about 17% of the jail population awaiting trial consisted of people who had allegedly violated their probation. In the men’s intake jail, it costs $81,584 to incarcerate one person for a year. Added up, it can cost around $10 million to incarcerate men who have allegedly violated probation in that facility alone.
Pona’s family say she rose above difficult life circumstances
Carol Pona was a kid who had a tough start to life. When she was a teenager, her daughter Tiqua Pona said Pona lost her mother in a house fire, and her father was shot to death by the Providence Police.
Pona’s family, friends, and lawyer say she was funny, generous, and a little mischievous.
Her granddaughter Latiqua Pona says she was kind to all, perhaps because of what she dealt with growing up.
“She was someone who would always give you your flowers. Make you feel good about yourself. You know, because life is hard. Everybody faces different challenges every day and deals with things, and sometimes you need a certain person to tell you ‘Oh, I love you’ or, ‘Everything's gonna be alright.’ And she was that,” Latiqua Pona said.
But she also had a track record with the courts. This was not Pona’s first time allegedly violating probation. According to her lawyer, Gary Pelletier, there were many times when she was held when she would have otherwise been able to be out on bail. Her probationary period was a long one: 10 years for a felony vehicular endangerment count, plus 10 for a count of drug possession – totaling 20 years.
And she struggled with mental illness. Discharge documents from Rhode Island Hospital show she suffered from bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She was on at least one antidepressant.
Lots of people in Rhode Island live under constant fear of re-incarceration
Living under a long probationary sentence like Carol Pona’s can feel akin to living under a dark cloud. Juan Turbidez is 33 years old, and he’s been on probation since he was a teenager. He says it means he has to watch his back at every instance.
“It is isolating. I don't really get rides from just anybody,” he said, “because if you’re dabbling in the streets and shit, I can't get caught with you. They're never gonna believe me. They’re just gonna look at my record, and then that's it, you know?”
The Rhode Island state statute says that if the Attorney General’s office finds you guilty of failing to “keep the peace” at any moment during your probation, you can be remanded to jail again.
“But what the hell does that even mean?” Turbidez asked. “When you’re on probation and you get in trouble, it's like the odds are against you, tremendously. It's like you're guilty until proven innocent.”
Attorneys Chung and Karwashan agree with that assessment, saying the burden on the state to prove the allegations are true is much lower for people who violate probation than for someone coming in on a new charge. They say under this law, people who violate probation lack a right to presumption of innocence.
Sources on the inside claim COs ignored Carol Pona’s cries for help
Her family says Carol Pona was usually a happy, energetic woman, so it was a stark difference when she suddenly started feeling so ill in jail.
“She would call every day, even cry, like, ‘I'm in so much pain,’” her granddaughter Latiqua Pona said.
Pona’s daughter and granddaughter said she started feeling sick in February.
Three sources who were on the inside with Pona confirm that by Feb. 13, she was already complaining about being sick. Rachel Burgos overlapped with Pona for about a month at the women’s facility in Cranston.
“As soon as I met Carol, she was always mentioning that she thought she had cancer, that she was in a lot of pain,” Burgos said. “And she was always complaining to the [correctional officers], asking them if she could get seen by a nurse, all the time. By the time that I got out, she would sit in the recreational room crying, like crying, like real tears, and begging them to give her medical attention.”
Burgos added that the correctional officers would poke fun at sick inmates and prevent them from getting care. She also said they would only give inmates medication at designated times each day, so if you had a different schedule, they’d deny you that. That’s also what Pona told her daughter, Tiqua Pona, over the phone – that correctional officers did not allow her to take her medication as needed.
Burgos’ friend Eve, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, also served with Pona and Burgos. She overlapped with Pona for about five and a half weeks. In that time, she said she saw Pona “sick, throwing up, bleeding, and they didn’t really help her, when she asked for help continuously, over, and over, and over again.”
Another woman named Jariah Holland was inside with Pona from the day that Pona arrived.
“She had me feel the lumps under her breasts, and they felt hard,” said Holland, who agreed she was asking for medical care constantly and was denied it.
RIDOC did not respond to questions about the facility’s medication schedule, or these claims, but wrote in an emailed statement “The RIDOC believes that every person should be treated with dignity and respect, and to that end, our Medical Department has a standard of care that meets – and in many cases exceeds – those in the community.”
Pona did get an evaluation eventually, likely in late February or early March, according to Tiqua and Latiqua Pona. RIDOC denied the family’s requests to get recordings of phone calls between themselves and Pona that could confirm that information.
Some weeks went by. Eventually, Tiqua Pona says, RIDOC brought Carol Pona to Rhode Island Hospital so she could receive care on the outside while remaining under state custody. While at the hospital, she was handcuffed to a bed, with a correctional officer from the jail guarding her.
Legislation would change the current system
The bill that would require judges to set bail for people like Carol Pona is currently in committee in both the state house and the state senate. During its first Senate committee hearing on March 28, one key branch of government was opposed: the state Judiciary– the body who would be in charge of implementing the changes in the bill.
As Pona lay on her death bed on the same day she was finally released after months of being sick, an attorney for the state Judiciary was submitting testimony opposing the bill that would have freed her months earlier, saying the bill would interfere with court sovereignty, writing “it is the judicial officer with all the relevant information before him who is in the best position to make an informed decision.”
But most who spoke or submitted testimony on the bill were in favor, including former public defender Chung. Part of the issue for her, and for Karwashan with the rule as it stands, is that many people who allegedly violated probation take a three month plea deal for the new charge. Three months, Karwashan says, is plenty of time to ruin lives.
“They get pulled off the street, they go to jail, they may lose a job, they may lose some housing. Then they come back on the street, they need to figure all that stuff out and climb back up from the issues that have accumulated over the past three months,” he said. “And so now, they're in a worse position than they were when everything began. And so it's just a really bad snowball effect.”
Also in the room that day was Tarah Dorsey, a long-time friend of Pona’s, and no stranger to that plea deal himself.
On one occasion, while he was inside for a misdemeanor on which he says he otherwise could have made bail, Dorsey said he lost his job, and his partner couldn’t make rent on her own.
“We basically lived check-to-check at the time, and she lost the apartment. She had to move in with my mom,” Dorsey said.
No longer on probation, Dorsey has used this life experience to become and advocate for others in his situation. He works helping clients from local non-profit Project Weber/Renew in court.
As it was his turn to speak on the bill, a voice told the committee chairperson he was no longer in the room.
“I left because I found out Carol passed away,” he said.
The courts finally allowed Pona to be released, but by then it was too late
After less than two weeks in the hospital, it was time for Carol Pona to be released to home confinement. Doctors found lesions on her liver that were cancerous.
For a week, RIDOC did not inform her lawyer that Pona had been moved to the hospital, but once doctors said she needed hospice care by March 16, the state was calling him to let him know he could arrange to get her an ankle monitor for her release.
RIDOC did not respond to questions about why it did not contact her family and lawyer immediately when Pona was moved to the hospital.
Pona was set to be released from RIDOC custody on March 28. But by then, she was too sick to leave the hospital.
“When I called, it was probably about four o'clock or 4:30. And they were giving essentially the end-of-life speech to Carol and her family,” Pelletier said.
Pona died at 5:10 p.m. Her cause of death was listed as liver failure due to liver cancer.
In an emailed statement, RIDOC wrote “We would like to extend our deepest condolences to the family for their loss.”
Had Rhode Island not had the 32F rule–had Pona been released on bail and able to see a physician of her choosing on the outside, it’s not certain she would have lived. What her family knows, though, is that she would have been free to seek care of her own volition. And failing life-saving treatment, she could have spent her final months with them. Tiqua Pona says they’re considering lawsuits and intend to push for passage of the legislation to overhaul 32F, now pending in both House and Senate committees, that would have given Carol Pona a different ending to her story.
“I can't save my mom. My mom's not here any more,” Tiqua said. “But I want to save others from this. I want to make sure that the doors open for them.”
As of May 1, Carol Pona's daughter Tonia is being held without bail under 32-F, in the same facility her mother spent her final months.
Metro reporter Olivia Ebertz can be reached at olivia@thepublicsradio.org. Follow her on Twitter @OliviaEbertz