Jim Morrison Pardoned for Indecent Exposure

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Doors frontman Jim Morrison was posthumously pardoned Thursday for a 1969 indecent exposure conviction in Florida.

Morrison, a Florida native, was appealing the conviction when he was found dead in a Paris bathtub in 1971 at age 27. The pardon came a day after the singer would have turned 67.

Outgoing Gov. Charlie Crist asked for the pardon, which the Clemency Board granted unanimously. Crist said he doubts Morrison actually exposed his penis during a rowdy concert on March 1, 1969, at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium. He and a three-member Cabinet serve as the Clemency Board. The surviving members of The Doors supported the pardon.

At the hearing, Crist called the conviction a "blot" on the record of an accomplished artist for "something he may or may not have done."

He said Morrison died before he was afforded the chance to present his appeal, so Crist was doing that for him. Board members pointed out several times that they couldn't retry the case but that the pardon forgave Morrison, as others were absolved of their convictions on Thursday.

"In this case the guilt or innocence is in God's hands, not ours," Crist said.

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

"It never actually happened. It was mass hypnosis," Ray Manzarek, The Doors' keyboard player, said in an interview before the vote.

But Patricia Morrison, author of the book "Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison," said the Doors lead singer would reject the pardon.

"I think he would reject this completely out of hand," she told CNN. "He would just say, 'You know, no thanks. I can't be bothered.'"

"He didn't do anything wrong, but he wouldn't want to be cleared," she added. "To me, pardoning him for this ... would make all the pain and suffering he went through in regard to this trial utterly meaningless ... and I believe Jim would feel the same way."