Even though it wasn’t an issue in last November gubernatorial elections, Charlie Crist, Florida’s outgoing governor, got a lot of headlines thanks to Jim Morrison almost forty years after the death of The Doors’ lead singer. Crist, in one of his last acts as governor, won a posthumous pardon for the rock legend who had been charged with indecent exposure during a concert at Coconut Grove, just south of Miami, in 1969.
“Much controversy surrounds this conviction,” Crist said in a statement issued along with his appeal to the state’s clemency board. “In this case, guilt or innocence is in God’s hands, not ours.”
Morrison had denied the charges and appealed a six-month jail sentence. He paid bail to avoid prison, then left for Paris where he died two years later before the appeal was heard. But his fans hadn’t forgotten and continued sending inquiries to the governor’s office.