BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday said a Baton Rouge Police officer's criminal malfeasance conviction for groping a woman during a traffic stop must stand.

Donald Steele's application for a writ of certiorari — a request for a higher court to review a lower court's decision — was denied, meaning his felony conviction stands. The full filing can be found here.

“The trial court’s action of rendering a guilty verdict then later reversing that verdict was legally erroneous and needed correction. We are pleased that the Louisiana Supreme Court maintained Donald Steele’s conviction for Malfeasance in Office in violation of La. R.S. 14:134 and we will prepare for sentencing," 19th JDC District Attorney Hillar Moore said in response to the action.

Steele was accused of grabbing a motorist's breasts after a traffic stop near LSU in 2021.

The court case that ensued was rife with controversy. Judge Eboni Johnson Rose, in a bench trial, convicted Steele on misdemeanor malfeasance, a crime that doesn't exist.  A month later, she acquitted him.

That decision was overturned by the state's 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that Steele was guilty of felony malfeasance in office for the 2021 incident. The court argued that Rose overstepped her bounds when she tossed out the conviction.

Rose previously ruled in a case with the same double-jeopardy implications, which then saw the state Supreme Court ordering the acquittal of a baseball bat- and gun-wielding school teacher whose conviction on an aggravated assault charge was initially pronounced as an acquittal. Justices, in that case, that the teacher couldn't be convicted after being acquitted.

Rose was later removed from the bench by the state Supreme Court in response to complaints about these and other cases. She remains suspended.