Outgoing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is looking to pardon long-dead rocker Jim Morrison who was convicted of exposing himself at a raucous 1969 concert in Miami.
Morrison was lead singer for top 1960s rock act The Doors and a Florida native. He was appealing the indecent exposure and profanity conviction when he died in 1971 in a Paris bathtub at age 27.
Crist told the St. Petersburg Times Tuesday that the more he looked into what happened that night, the more he thought it was right to seek a pardon. Morrison was fined and sentenced to six months in jail but never served that time.
A jury in 1970 convicted Morrison of indecent exposure and open profanity, though he was cleared of a more serious felony count of lewd and lascivious behavior and public drunkenness. He was sentenced to six months in jail, but died two years later in Paris while the case was under appeal.
"I've decided to do it, for the pure and simple reason that I just think it's the right thing to do," Crist told The New York Times. "In some ways it seems like a tragic conclusion to a young man's life to have maybe this be a lasting legacy, where we're not even sure that it actually occurred. The more that I’ve read about the case and the more I get briefed on it, the more convinced I am that maybe an injustice has been done here."
A message left by The Associated Press with Crist's spokesman wasn't immediately returned.
Crist, a Republican-turned-independent, lost his bid for a U.S. Senate seat earlier this month.