PROVIDENCE — Before she was a patient in the psychiatric wing of the Rhode Island state hospital, Charlene Liberty was a prison inmate allegedly driven to suicidal behavior by extended periods in solitary confinement.

Her death in April, less than two months after she was released from the Eleanor Slater Hospital, has put the spotlight back on a pending lawsuit protesting the treatment of people with mental illness in the state prison system. In Liberty's case, treatment included the use of leg shackles, belly chains, pepper spray and solitary confinement.

Liberty, 38, was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in October 2019.

The lawsuit details her troubled history and the response by state prison officials that allegedly drove her deeper into despair.

In 2017, a legislative study commission issued a report that reflected the commitments made then by prison officials to "limit time in segregation, reduce sensory deprivation for those in it, and exclude from segregation inmates who are mentally ill [or] have developmental disabilities."

In an interview in May 2020, Department of Correction spokesman J.R. Ventura was quoted as saying: "There is no such thing as solitary confinement anymore, where inmates are isolated or deprived of human contact.

“Even in the most extreme of cases, where an inmate is a severe management problem, they are not placed in a solitary environment,” Ventura said. “People here have regular human interactions and their constitutional rights are respected."

The lawsuit filed by Disability Rights Rhode Island and attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project and the Rhode Island ACLU affiliate in 2019 on behalf of six inmates at the Adult Correctional Institutions detailed  alleged instances as recent as 2019.

Liberty was in and out of prison on numerous occasions between March 18, 2015 and Aug. 12, 2019, when it appears she was transferred to the psychiatric wing of the state hospital.

The lawsuit described her as a then-36-year-old woman with "a long history of mental illness who ... attempted suicide by hanging and self-mutilation."

At one point in May 2019, "a correctional officer pepper-sprayed her [for] engaging in ... self-injurious behavior," such as "running head first into the door and diving off the sink/toilet two times.

"A medical staffer noted in her record that when he entered her cell he was overcome by pepper-spray and had to immediately exit to put on another mask. When he returned to her cell he noted that she was foaming at the mouth, had cyanosis (bluish discoloration) of the neck and face, and was twitching as if experiencing a seizure.

"Her condition was so severe that she was sent to an emergency room and then to a psychiatric and intensive-care stay at Kent Hospital.

"On May 16, 2019, after her return from the psychiatric hospital to [the Rhode Island Department of Corrections] she was immediately placed in the solitary confinement unit as punishment for her suicidal behavior," the lawsuit alleges.

"On June 4, 2019, [she] was still in solitary confinement."

The lawsuit contends: "The conditions in solitary confinement [drove] Ms. Liberty to engage in serious self-injurious behaviors, including multiple suicide attempts." The pepper-spraying "exacerbat[ed] her mental-health problems."

On Jan. 3, 2020, Assistant Attorney General Brenda D. Baum responded on behalf of the Department of Corrections.

She acknowledged that Liberty "had a head injury in 2019'' that necessitated taking her to a hospital emergency room for treatment. "When appropriate due to her behavior,'' her filing said, Liberty "was housed in a suicide resistant cell in the Women’s Facility."

Baum denied the allegations of inappropriate treatment.

The case is still pending in federal court, with the last in a series of scheduled  settlement conferences canceled.

In a separate case, a federal judge ruled in 2020 that the state Department of Corrections was failing to comply with a longstanding court order limiting the time an inmate can be held in solitary confinement to 30 days.

Disability Rights Rhode Island, an advocacy organization with investigatory powers, is probing the circumstances of Liberty's discharge from the hospital and subsequent death under circumstances that have not yet been officially determined.

"We mourn the loss of a victim of the system," said Morna Murray, executive director of the group.