41 years after the fact, Florida finally pardons Jim Morrison
Outgoing Governor Charlie Crist appealed for clemency to a special committee to clear the lead singer of The Doors of the charges.
“Much controversy surrounds this conviction,” Mr. Crist said in a statement noting that among other things Morrison was not arrested until four days after the 1969 concert in Coconut Grove, south of Miami.
“In this case, guilt or innocence is in God’s hands, not ours. That is why I ask my colleagues today to pardon Jim Morrison,” Mr. Crist said.
The request was approved unanimously.
Morrison had been accused of displaying his penis, desecrating public morals and profanity while drunk. “Morrison appeared to masturbate in full view of his audience, screamed obscenities and exposed himself,” The Miami Herald newspaper reported at the time.
The singer, however, denied the charges and appealed the judgment and the sentence of six months’ hard labour, and paid bail to stay out of jail.
Fearing he would be sent to prison, Morrison left for Paris where he died in 1971 at the age of 27 before his appeal was heard.
Morrison was found dead in a bathtub in his apartment, apparently of a drug-induced heart attack, after a reported binge in a nightclub.
His death while appealing the case justifies clemency, Mr. Crist said.
“A pardon corrects the fact that Mr. Morrison is now unable to take advantage of the presumption of innocence that is the cornerstone of the American justice system,” Mr. Crist told fellow members of the board.
The Doors released 14 albums that sold more than one million copies each, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Among their most popular songs are Love Me Two Times, People Are Strange and Light My Fire. Morrison is buried in Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Morrison admitted removing his shirt during the concert and calling for “a little nakedness,” according to a transcript of court testimony provided by Mr. Crist’s office. He denied flashing the audience.
The Governor’s office got “constant” inquiries about the case over the past four years, said Sterling Ivey, Mr. Crist’s spokesman. The almost 200 received since November showed 120 in support of a pardon and 77 against, he said.
A full pardon is meant to restore the rights of a convicted person and doesn’t imply that a crime hasn’t been
committed.
“It’s not about the guilt or innocence of the man,” Mr. Crist told the board. “We have had the opportunity for 40 years for this son of Florida, whose body of work has endured and who has this blight on his record for something he may or may not have done when he was essentially a kid.”
The man who brought the case to Mr. Crist’s attention in 2007 was Gary Fineout, then a reporter with Flori, Mr. Ivey said.
Mr. Fineout’s interest was sparked “sort of by accident,” the reporter said in an email, after he became aware of a fan effort to have Morrison pardoned. Mr. Fineout asked Mr. Crist whether he would review the case, he said. It was a request made for a possible article, not because he thought Morrison should be cleared, he said.
Mr. Crist said he’d consider a pardon because both he and Morrison had attended Florida State University in Tallahassee, according to a 2007 Herald article by Mr. Fineout.
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