CRANSTON, R.I. — The families of three men who died by suicide at the Adult Correctional Institutions last year are suing the prison’s supervisors and staff, arguing that they were “deliberately indifferent” to their risk of suicide.
Cooperating attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island filed the lawsuits in US District Court on Wednesday on behalf of the families of 39-year-old Dana Leyland, 27-year-old Brian Rodenas, and Peter De Los Santos, 35, who all died within a five-month span last year.
Leyland was awaiting trial on drug offenses and suffering from withdrawal when he hanged himself with a bed sheet while in solitary confinement in April 2023.
Rodenas had a history of severe mental illness, which the lawsuit says prison officials knew. He also was in solitary confinement where he also hanged himself with a bed sheet in May 2023.
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De Los Santos had a history of substance abuse and was suffering from withdrawal while awaiting trial at the intake center. He used his shoelaces to hang himself there in August 2023.
The three lawsuits also allege that prison officials were negligent in failing to properly intervene or provide the men with necessary medical care, and violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“These three deaths were tragedies, and they highlight all too unfortunately the critical need to vastly limit the cruel and too-extensive use of solitary confinement at the ACI,” Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, said in a statement announcing the lawsuits. “The loss of these lives is only compounded by the lack of transparency surrounding their passing.”
The lawsuits were filed by Mark Decof, Jeffrey Mega, and Shad Miller, from the law firm of Decof, Mega & Quinn, P.C.
A separate pending ACLU lawsuit has led to solitary confinement reform at the prison, according to the ACLU, including a general limit of 30 days that prisoners can be placed in solitary confinement and that prison officials consider the prisoner’s mental health before moving them to solitary.
There were at least four suicides at the ACI in 2023, and 27 between 2001 and 2019, according to the US Department of Justice.
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The ACLU has called on the state Department of Corrections to fill the medical director’s position, which has been open for nearly two years.
Leadership there has been tumultuous. Wayne T. Salisbury Jr. was confirmed as director of corrections last month, despite an all-out campaign by the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers to upend his nomination, bringing up that Salisbury had been charged with a felony that was later dismissed, and blaming him for increases in prison fights and drug use.
Amanda Milkovits can be reached at amanda.milkovits@globe.com. Follow her @AmandaMilkovits.