In December 1983, at the age of 20, Raymond Flanks was arrested for robbing a New Orleans supermarket. He pleaded guilty to that crime, but not before police found a gun on him that they wrongly connected to the fatal shooting of an elderly man named Martin Carnesi.
The state’s case relied heavily on the account of a single eyewitness to the botched robbery that claimed Carnesi’s life: his traumatized widow. Although the suspect she described did not match Flanks’ age or appearance, police put his picture in a photo lineup. She picked him out with the help of a flashlight.
Flanks was tried twice. The first jury deadlocked. The second found him guilty, and in 1985 he was sentenced to life without parole. He wrote to the Innocence Project dozens of times, but he lacked the DNA evidence the organization needed to take his case.
The Innocence Project of New Orleans agreed to help Flanks in 2020. In their investigation, they discovered that the prosecution had withheld key evidence that might have led police to another man. Louisiana agreed to vacate Flanks’ conviction on November 17, 2022. He walked out of the courtroom a free man after nearly 39 years of incarceration. He’d served most of his time at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary, which is better known as Angola.
One bright spot in Flanks’ ordeal was Cassandra Delpit, an old friend who became his life partner. In this third installment of our series, “Love Beyond Bars,” Raymond describes how the couple bonded at the Angola Prison Rodeo.
Cassandra and I grew up in the same neighborhood, but we lost touch when I was arrested. I used to walk by her house to get to work when I was 15 or 16 years old. We hadn’t seen each other in years, but had begun speaking in letters when she surprised me at the Angola Prison Rodeo in 2012.
The rodeo has tents, food, events and people selling crafts like any festival in society. I was sitting in my tent, trying to sell the rocking chairs, tables and little jewelry boxes that I had made. Next thing you know, I heard a voice. I looked up and there Cassandra was. She had said she might come, but I wasn’t really expecting her to. She got some food for us, and we ate and talked while I was selling my products.
After that, she began to come to each rodeo. Sometimes she’d bring her grandkids or friends. The rodeo allowed [me] to get away from the mundane, to move around and have a little liberty. But I never once felt free because we were always being monitored. You had officers always walking around and cameras everywhere.
Still, the rodeo was a big part of Cassandra and I actually being able to see one another in public. Those were great times, but in the back of my mind, I knew that I was being watched. I always anticipated having these moments without being under security.
Camille Farrah Lenain is a French-Algerian documentary photographer who grew up in Paris. She relocated to New Orleans in 2013. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, including at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Arab World Institute, Photoville and Les Rencontres d’Arles.
Carla Canning is an engagement journalist and contract editor at Prison Journalism Project. She previously worked on Life Inside as The Marshall Project’s Tow audience engagement fellow. At the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, she created a website guide for people visiting loved ones incarcerated in New York State prisons.
