Gov. Charlie Crist will pursue pardon of Doors rocker Jim Morrison

Gov. Charlie Crist said he has made up his mind and will pursue a posthumous pardon of rock icon Jim Morrison of the Doors, who was convicted of exposing himself during a Miami concert in 1969.

Crist said he began looking into the case a couple years ago after he was asked about it by a news reporter.

``The more I looked into it, the more I felt the right thing to do would be to try bring about a pardon,'' Crist said Tuesday in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times. ``And I've reached that conclusion now, that's what I'm going to do.''

A jury in 1970 convicted Morrison of indecent exposure and open profanity, though he was cleared of a more serious felony count of lewd and lascivious behavior and public drunkenness. He was sentenced to six months in jail, but died two years later in Paris while the case was under appeal.

Whether Morrison ever actually exposed himself during the concert, however, has been a matter of intense speculation and debate over the years.

Crist said he wasn't convinced after reviewing the case that Morrison did ``what he was charged with here.''

``We really don't know if the alleged act occurred,'' Crist said.

Although there are many photographs of the concert, none showed proof that Morrison exposed himself. And there was no video or other tangible evidence, Crist said. A half-dozen prosecution witnesses at the trial, including police officers working at the concert, said they saw what they saw, but plenty of defense witnesses said they saw nothing.

``He was a young guy who maybe, or maybe not, made a mistake,'' Crist said. ``It strikes me that everyone deserves a second chance. You have to have the capacity for forgiveness.''

``Having been attorney general, it's hard for me to forget the words of (his predecessor) Bob Butterworth, 'It's important to prosecute the guilty, but maybe even more important to exonerate the innocent.' I think this may be such a case.''

Perhaps, Crist said, it was a case of a jury that felt ``making a point was more important than being right.''

Crist called Morrison an iconic figure in music history in our country'' and a ``tremendous talent.''

The current Clemency Board has one meeting left, Dec. 9 in Tallahassee. It takes just one member vote to put Morrison's case on the agenda, and then the votes of two members plus the governor to approve a pardon.

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