Jim Morrison may get pardon in FL, Libby does not

Jeanwah

I know it sounds strange, but...

This week was all about the pardon. Florida governor Charlie Crist revealed that he's considering a posthumous pardon for Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, before he vacates office in December. The pardon would wipe away an indecent exposure conviction from a wild 1969 concert in Miami.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush told the TODAY show that former Vice President Dick Cheney was angry with him for failing to pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

http://bltwy.msnbc.msn.com/#wallState=0 ... 30.gallery

Full story: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... ing-office

mysticweed

ah jim morrison
justice at last

bush commuted libby's sentence but did not eradicate the conviction
tepid half ass justice

Jeanwah

Jim got his pardon today. He probably wouldn't care one way or the other...

Byrnzie

Jim Morrison pardoned by Florida for his night of infamy, 41 years on

Outgoing governor of sunshine state – who was 13 in 1969 – says Doors frontman was probably not guilty of indecency


Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 December 2010


In the words of Jim Morrison: This is the end. Nearly four decades after his death, Florida's clemency board is today expected to pardon the legendary Doors frontman of convictions for indecent exposure and profanity at a Miami concert that were apparently driven by official hostility to the counterculture of the time.

The outgoing governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, engineered the pardon because he said there were grave doubts as to whether Morrison, who died in his bath in Paris in 1971, was guilty.

But one of Morrison's lawyers says he probably was guilty, although he also thinks it ironic that the singer was cleared of the one offence he undoubtedly committed – being very drunk in public during the concert.

Morrison was arrested after a raucous performance at a Miami venue in 1969 in which he was accused of dropping his trousers and launching a drunken and profanity-laced anti-authority rant.

Morrison, who would have been 67 this week, was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $500 (£317) but never went to jail. He moved to France while the case was on appeal and was found dead, possibly of a drug overdose, the following year.

Crist, who was 13 when Morrison was convicted in 1970, says the evidence that the singer exposed himself during a concert was weak and the authorities were seeking to make an example of a leading counterculture figure with a reputation for sexual promiscuity and drug use. Crist said he had a "duty to right a wrong".

"While it's important to prosecute the guilty, it's probably more important to exonerate the innocent," Crist told the Miami Herald. "I think justice is one of the most important things you can stand for in society. If you truly believe that an injustice has been done, how would you be able to stand by?"

The Doors keyboard player, Ray Manzarek, said that Morrison only pretended to expose himself during a concert in which he brought a lamb on stage and talked about having sex with it, before concluding that it was "too young", grabbed a police officer's hat and threw it into the audience, and told fans to "love your neighbour 'til it hurts".

"It never actually happened. It was mass hypnosis," he told the Associated Press. "He was just doing a mind trip – as they would say – a mind trip on the audience and they totally fell for it … There were 100 photos offered in evidence at the trial, photos of everything - Jim with the lamb, Jim with the hat, on the stage collapsing, riot in the audience. Not one photo of Jim's magnificent member."

But Robert Josefsberg, one of Morrison's defence lawyers at his trial, is more sceptical. He thinks that the singer probably did break the law but that the charges were politically motivated. "The charges brought against him were that it was 1969, it was a different world. There were all sorts of political and social pressures," he told the New York Times. "People were terribly offended by what he did. And I think it got blown out of proportion, as most things do. It gathered its own steam and fed off itself, and it became an atrocious thing. Not that I'm saying dropping your pants in public is acceptable. It's not. It's also not the worst thing in the world that ever happened. I'm not justifying his behaviour, I think there was an overreaction."

Even the fans who were there can't agree. Lee Winer, now a 56-year-old resident of San Francisco, says Morrison put it all out there. "He actually unzipped and pulled his pants down a little bit, enough where you can see everything. I do remember being shocked when that happened, and definitely it happened," he told the Associated Press.

But Helene Davis, back then an 18 year-old seated in the front row, says that there was nothing to see.

"We were watching and waiting because it was obvious that's where he was going with it," she said. "I just remembered thinking, 'Yes, it's going to happen! It's going happen! It's going to happen!' And it never did."

Manzarek says it makes little difference.

"Jim's legacy is one of Dionysian madness and frenzy and of a chaotic American poet," he said. "I don't think that the Miami episode has altered his image one iota."

Electric_Delta

At least Florida's priorities are in order.