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Jim Morrison's Family, The Doors Bandmates Say Pardon Isn't Enough

12/30/2010
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(Gibson) The family of late Doors frontman Jim Morrison and his former bandmates have called for official apologies from the state of Florida and the city of Miami over Morrison's 1969 arrest for lewd and lascivious behavior.

Morrison was officially pardoned earlier this month, but the singer's family and the surviving Doors feel he shouldn't be pardoned for anything. "His performance in Miami that night was certainly provocative, and entirely in the insurrectionary spirit of the Doors' music and message," they said in a statement. "The charges against him were largely an opportunity for grandstanding by ambitious politicians � not to mention an affront to free speech and a massive waste of time and taxpayer dollars. As Ann Woolner of The Albany Times-Union wrote recently, 'Morrison's case bore all the signs of a political prosecution, a rebuke from the cultural right to punish a symbol of Dionysian rebellion.'"

Whatever took place that night ended with the Doors sharing beers and laughter in the dressing room with the Miami police, who acted as security at the venue that evening. No arrests were made." The statement goes on to say that it wasn't until four days later that warrants were issued in Miami for the arrest of Morrison on "trumped-up charges of indecency, public obscenity and general rock 'n' roll revelry."

"If the State of Florida and the City of Miami want to make amends for the travesty of Jim Morrison's arrest and prosecution 40 years after the fact, an apology would be more appropriate � and expunging the whole sorry matter from the record," the family said.

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