Jim Morrison and Billy the Kid Wouldn't Beg Our Pardon
- by Jenny McCartney
THEY WON A GREAT DEAL OF POSTHUMOUS CELEBRITY FOR BEING OUTLAWS – AND OUTLAWS THEY SHOULD REMAIN, SAYS JENNY MCCARTNEY.
Another week, and talk of yet another pardon: this time for Billy the Kid, the 19th-century outlaw who was shot dead by Sheriff Pat Garrett.
Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, is now investigating whether his predecessor, Lew Wallace, really did offer the Kid a selective pardon in exchange for testimony in a murder trial: if so, he will consider honouring it.
But why meddle with a myth? Billy the Kid has won a great deal of posthumous celebrity for being an outlaw – a role at which he apparently worked hard – and an outlaw he should remain. A move to render him slightly less of an outlaw, so long after his death, rather misses the point, like pardoning Dick Turpin for highway robbery.
The same applies to the news, earlier this month, that the outgoing governor of Florida had pardoned the late Jim Morrison for exposing himself on stage, on the basis that Morrison may not have done it. These charges caused Morrison a deal of trouble when he was alive, but have only embellished his reputation thereafter. I suspect that, could they speak from beyond the grave, very few of these characters would be begging our pardon.
