‘It means everything:’ How the Juvenile Restoration Act has provided a second chance for people sentenced as children to prison in Maryland

For 30 years, Anthony Fair said, he prepared for the day when he would be released from prison in Maryland. On Jan. 20, 1993, Fair shot and killed Rodney Ross, 17, and William Fortune, 38, in the basement of a stash house in Sandtown-Winchester — a decision, he said, he immediately regretted. He was later found guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court of first- and second-degree murder and use of a handgun during the commission of a crime of violence and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole — plus 20 years. He said he never had a doubt, though, that someone reviewing his case would eventually give him a second chance. And on Sept. 20, Fair walked out of the Patuxent Institution, a prison in Jessup, a free man.