SUBJECT OF 'FREE LEE OTIS' RALLYING CRIES LAID TO REST

HOUSTON- Lee Otis Johnson, a black student leader in the 1960s who was
sentenced to 30 years in prison for passing a marijuana cigarette to an
undercover officer, has died. He was 62.

His 1968 sentence sparked the rallying cry "Free Lee Otis!" It became the
chant of students and liberals across Texas.

The saying, also featured on bumper stickers, was shorthand for their
arguments that state drug laws were overly harsh, that civil rights needed
a boost and that Johnson was framed because of his activities that
displeased the city's conservative powers.

Johnson was buried Tuesday at Houston Memorial Gardens cemetery, six days
after his death.

Johnson was freed four years into his prison term, and the Texas marijuana
laws eventually were relaxed.

But not before then-Gov. Preston Smith got the chant wrong.

Protesters disrupted Smith's 1970 speech at the University of Houston with
"Free Lee Otis!" and other cries.

A week later in Austin, the governor explained he thought the protesters
had shouted about "frijoles." He said he wondered what the protesters had
against beans.

Johnson's prison terms _ the four years for marijuana and another stint in
the late 1970s for burglary _ changed his priorities. He devoted the last
20 years or so to Christianity and his family, said his sister, Gethsemane
Campbell of Lafayette, La.

"He was still interested in mankind," she told the Houston Chronicle for
its Wednesday editions. "Civil rights, it was moving along (without him),
so I think he decided to go to God and his church."

In his last years, Johnson managed an apartment complex owned by his
family. In 1989, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail for shoplifting razor
blades.

Johnson suffered from heart disease, relatives said, and he rejected
doctors' advice to have his legs amputated because of circulatory problems.

As district attorney in 1968, Carol Vance took the unusual step of serving
as courtroom prosecutor of Johnson's marijuana case. It was because Johnson
was viewed as one of several student leaders who had brought turmoil to
Texas Southern University, Vance recalled.

Johnson claimed innocence and said in the trial that he had never used
marijuana. Vance said Tuesday that he urged the jury to sentence Johnson to
15 or 20 years in prison in light of a previous criminal record. The jury
went beyond that with its 30-year sentence.

"Times have changed so much that the sentence he received would not make
sense in accordance with today," Vance said.

A U.S. district judge ruled in 1972 that Johnson's trial should have been
conducted away from Houston or delayed because of publicity and public
attitudes about the social upheaval of the times. Johnson was granted a new
trial and released. Prosecutors declined to retry the case.

Before the 1968 trial, Johnson had led marches for student rights at Texas
Southern University. The university eventually expelled him for being
disruptive. He was an officer in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee, a nationwide civil rights group.

A street in the Sunnyside neighborhood on the south side bears his name.

Survivors include sons Otis D. Talbot and Ronald Johnson and daughters
Michelle and Jennifer Johnson, all of Houston.

Information from: Houston Chronicle