Doors' Morrison gets posthumous pardon for 'exposure'

The Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison will get a posthumous pardon today for an indecent exposure conviction in Florida after he pulled what a bandmate called “a mind trip on the audience, and they totally fell for it”.

Governor Charlie Crist got a commitment yesterday for the second of two votes needed from other members of the state’s Board of Executive Clemency to approve the pardon.

Morrison was appealing against the conviction when he was found dead in a Paris bathtub in 1971. Today’s meeting comes a day after the singer would have been 67.

Mr Crist cannot issue a pardon on his own. He and the three-member cabinet serve as the clemency board. Approval is required by the governor and at least two other members.

Chief financial officer Alex Sink, who was previously undecided, said yesterday that she would vote for the pardon, said his spokesman Kevin Cate.

She joined agriculture commissioner Charles Bronson who previously declared his support for the idea. Only attorney general Bill McCollum remained uncommitted. All are leaving office on January 4.

The did-he-or-didn’t-he debate has been revived by Mr Crist’s interest in the case.

Surviving band members say a drunken Morrison teased the Miami crowd, but never exposed himself.

“It never actually happened. It was mass hypnosis,” said Ray Manzarek, The Doors’ keyboard player.

Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger said Morrison’s behaviour was influenced by an acting troupe that disrobed during plays.

“He was just doing a mind trip – as they would say – a mind trip on the audience and they totally fell for it,” Manzarek said.

Manzarek said Morrison was far more drunk than usual, to the point where they questioned whether he should go on stage.

“It was like, ’Oh my goodness Jim, are you sure you can perform?’ ’No, no, we’re going on, we’re going on’,” Manzarek recalled.

Mr Crist began considering a pardon for Morrison in 2007 at the urging of a fan. He says he has doubts about whether Morrison actually exposed himself during the rowdy Miami concert on March 1 1969.

Nevertheless Morrison was convicted of public profanity and indecent exposure and sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

The case has become murkier with the passage of years. Morrison’s defence lawyer said recently that the singer received a fair trial with credible witnesses on both sides.

Most people agree that The Doors went on stage late, the Dinner Key Auditorium was oversold and was not air conditioned. Morrison was drunk and stopped in the middle of songs with an anti-authority, profanity-riddled rant.

A live lamb was brought on stage at one point and Morrison also grabbed a police officer’s hat and threw it in the crowd. The singer took off his shirt and fiddled with his belt, and fans poured on the stage.

“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,” said Manzarek.

By teasing the audience that night in 1969, Morrison was trying to make a social statement, much like comedian Lenny Bruce, Krieger said.

“To Jim it was kind of a case of testing the morals of the time. Lenny Bruce, he was the first guy who really put himself on the line as far as the law and how far they would go. Jim was kind of following in his footsteps. Not on purpose, but it kind of ended up that way.”

New York’s governor pardoned the late comedian on obscenity charges in 2002, 39 years after his conviction.