Bid to pardon Jim Morrison

Florida governor Charlie Crist said he was seriously thinking about pardoning dead rock star Jim Morrison for the singer’s 1970 indecent exposure and profanity conviction stemming from a Miami concert the year before.

On Morrison, who died aged 27, he said: “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.”

The arrest is still a part of the Morrison legend. He was drunk at the concert and police said he exposed himself, which Morrison denied. Morrison appealed against the conviction but was found dead in a Paris bath 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,” Mr Crist said.

The issue came up last month, when Ohio resident Dave Diamond wrote Crist and said there were no photos or video that could prove the case, and no witnesses who could say with 100% certainty that Morrison exposed himself.

Mr Diamond also pointed out that New York governor George Pataki pardoned comedian Lenny Bruce of an obscenity charge nearly four decades after his death.

He said in an email yesterday 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”.

Mr Crist said his legal team was reviewing the case and determining the procedure for granting a pardon.

“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,” Mr 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.”