Dead Rock Star Pardoned For 1969 Arrest
”Eventually justice has been done.” Probably this is what Jim Morrison would have said if he was still alive, after the outgoing Florida Governor Charlie Crist announced his intention to pardon the long-dead rock star for his arrest in 1969. Back than, the lead singer of the top 1960s band The Doors was put behind bars for indecent exposure and profanity, after he tried to spark a riot in the audience during one of his concerts in Miami.
On March the 1st 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Florida, hundreds of people were the witnesses of The Doorsʼ most controversial concert of their career, a performance that nearly destroyed the band. Earlier that day Jim Morrison, a true idol for his generation, attended a play by an experimental theater group, The Living Theatre, and their ”antaganostic” style of performing art influenced him a lot. So when he got on the stage, in front of a restless crowd, he was very little interested in singing, but instead he scremed challanges to the audience and made some obscene social statement. This got Morrison, four days later, behind bars, after the Dade County Sherrif’s office issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing the singer for deliberately exposing his penis while on stage, shouting obscenities to the audience and simulating oral sex on guitarist Robby Krieger. And all this while being drunk.
Prosecution tried a plea bargain with Morrison, asking him to perform a free concert in Miami, but the rock star turned down the proposal. So he was later tried, convicted and sentenced to six moths in jail and ordered to pay a $500 fine. And many of his concerts were canceled. Unhappy with the result, Morrison appealed his conviction, but he died in Paris before his appeal could be judged. But now his wish might be fulfilled by governor Charlie Crist.
Crist announced on Tuesday that he would officially submit Morrisonʼs name to the Florida clemency board as a candidate to be pardoned. He explained that he just felt that it was the right thing to do and argued his decision by that it would be tragic for such a conviction to be the conclusion of a young manʼs life, even if no one is sure what happened that night on the stage. Moreover, Crist said that the more he read about Morrisonʼs sentence, the more convinced he became that a justice had been done there, as at the trial no documentary evidence presenting Morrison exposing himself was shown.
But the final decision about Jim Morrisonʼs pardon is to be taken by the four members of the Florida Board of Executive Clemency, who will meet on December the 9th, their last meeting before Charlie Cristʼs term expires in January. And they can give a beautiful present to Jim Morrison, who would have turned 67 just a day before.
