After a rally with Crow at the University of Florida on Monday to stop global warming, Crist got on a plane for the capital and seemed lost in thought. He then turned and said he is seriously thinking about seeking a pardon for Morrison's 1970 indecent exposure and profanity conviction stemming from a Miami concert the year before. "He died when he was 27.
That's really a kid, when you think about it, and obviously he was having some challenges. There's some dispute about how solid the case was," Crist said. The arrest generated a lot of attention at the time and is still a part of the Morrison legend.
He was drunk at the concert and police said he exposed himself, which Morrison denied. He did curse repeatedly at the concert, though. Morrison appealed the conviction, but was found dead in a Paris bathtub before it could be heard.
"Trying to clear his name and then he dies. If you have a heart pounding in your chest, that has to tug at you a little bit. It should," Crist said.
The issue was brought to his attention by Ohio resident Dave Diamond last month. Diamond wrote Crist and said there were no photos or video that could prove the case, and no witnesses who could say with 100 percent certainty that Morrison exposed himself. As for the profanity charge, Diamond pointed out that New York Gov.
George Pataki pardoned comedian Lenny Bruce of an obscenity charge nearly four decades after his death, and that Morrison was at a rock concert, not a church. Diamond said in an e-mail Tuesday that a pardon would correct a legal injustice and bring relief to the Morrison family and the surviving Doors band members who "have had to live with the embarrassment of this botched case." He said it would put the focus back on Morrison's poetic and musical contributions.
Crist said he has his legal team reviewing the case and determining the procedure for granting a pardon. Crist sits on the Clemency Board with the state's three Cabinet members - Attorney General Bill McCollum, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson. While there are no procedures for posthumous pardons, at least three members of the board must approve a pardon in other circumstances.
Bronson said he saw The Doors in concert twice. He said he was willing to go along with the pardon, especially since Morrison was only convicted of a misdemeanor at a time when young people were expressing themselves in unique ways. "I do remember it.
It was kind of a big headline deal for a few days," Bronson said of the arrest. "In those days in time, people were streaking up and down the football field. I can remember those days very well.
" Crist, certainly, is willing to forgive youthful indiscretion. "Who doesn't do things that maybe they wish they hadn't done when you're that young? And then there was a problem with drugs," Crist said.
"I can remember when I was 10-years-old listening to the song come on, baby 'Light my Fire.' Classic. Classic.
And to have that much talent and to have it sucked out, even if there was some self-involvement ...
that's very sad and very tragic." Last modified: April 17.
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