TORONTO - A coroner's inquest into the death of a young woman in an Ontario prison may be webcast so the public can watch the proceedings.

But it's unclear when the inquest into the death of 19-year-old Ashley Smith, who often tied ligatures around her neck and choked herself to death in 2007, will resume.

The inquest started on May 16 but barely began before it was adjourned indefinitely.

The coroner's jury had only sat for three days and three other days were taken up with procedural wrangling, when coroner Dr. Bonita Porter announced the inquest would adjourn, though no return date was set.

The coroner's office said the delay was for Porter to take time to consider a couple of motions.

The office says in a release today that it is proposing the inquest -- when it resumes -- be webcast, and because that could affect the outstanding motions, June 21 is being set aside for lawyers to discuss the webcast proposition.

Since the inquest began, and for months prior, lawyers for advocates and the Smith family have spent much time pressing Porter to make the inquest more open and accessible to the public.

The inquest was adjourned indefinitely on May 25 for Porter to consider a couple of motions, including a request from the Correctional Service of Canada for guards' faces to be blurred in videos.

Porter is also considering a court ruling that ordered her to take another approach when deciding whether to include in the inquest videos from a Quebec prison that Smith's family says depict graphic mistreatment.

At the end of May, June 13 was set as a tentative return date for the inquest, but it did not resume that day, and there's no indication of a new date from the coroner's office.

It's unclear now when the inquest will resume, as a summer break was previously scheduled for July and August. Hearing all the evidence could take six to nine months.

Smith frequently tied various material around her neck and sometimes banged her head or cut herself, but the troubled youth said she wasn't trying to hurt herself, the inquest heard.

After being kept in near-constant isolation through much of her teenage years -- spent in and out of jails, youth centres and mental health facilities -- she did it for the stimulation, the inquest heard.

Smith's sentence had ballooned from days to years as time was added for numerous in-custody incidents.