In the interest of moving on to polls dealing with other critical world issues, I’m going to declare victory for the pro-pardon forces on the question whether Jim Morrison should be granted a posthumous pardon for his indecent-exposure conviction back in the 1960s. In the poll I ran, seventy-seven percent of readers voted for varying degrees of "yes, we think Jim Morrison should be pardoned," with 23 percent voting "no, I either don’t know who that is, do not like music or other kinds of fun, or think it is more consistent with American values to not cheer up Morrison’s aging father by clearing his son’s name of a trumped-up charge that was President Nixon’s idea in the first place."
Last I heard from the guys at Doors Collectors Magazine, the ones spearheading the petition drive, the petition request was bogged down in the governor’s office because the lawyers there wanted to see some paperwork. (Can you believe it? Lawyers demanding paperwork.) I offered my pro bono legal services to help with this, or I guess it would be more honest to say I offered to bother someone in our Miami or Tampa offices about it, but it turns out there is already at least one Florida attorney working on the papers. Well, that frees me up to bother some other state official somewhere, I suppose.
If you’re interested, there is information about the case at the link below, and also an online petition form.