BATON ROUGE — A police officer convicted, acquitted and then convicted again of malfeasance after being accused of groping a woman during a traffic stop plans to ask the state Supreme Court to clear him of a crime a second time.Lawyers for the state and BRPD officer Donald Steele were in court Wednesday to discuss a way forward after Louisiana’s 1st Circuit Court of Appeal said he was guilty of malfeasance, a felony.A now-suspended judge had convicted Steele of misdemeanor malfeasance, a crime that doesn’t exist, and then acquitted him. The 1st Circuit last month said then-Judge Eboni Johnson Rose didn’t have the right to toss the conviction.The state Supreme Court suspended Rose pending a review of her work. Justices said Rose’s work undermined faith in the judiciary system.Steele was accused of grabbing a motorist’s breasts after a traffic stop near LSU in 2021. Rose heard the case herself, without a jury, and convicted Steele.The 1st Circuit noted last month that no one had asked Rose to set aside the initial verdict, leaving her without the authority to throw out the conviction. It sent the case back to the 19th Judicial District Court, where Judge Michael McDonald has been appointed to work her docket.Rather than schedule proceedings to sentence Steele, McDonald opted to let the officer’s lawyers go to the state Supreme Court in an effort to reinstate the acquittal. McDonald gave Steele’s lawyers until Oct. 26 to file paperwork with the justices and said he would hold a hearing in early November. Rose’s error was not without precedent. In an earlier case with the same double-jeopardy implications, the state Supreme Court ordered 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 said in that case that the teacher couldn’t be convicted after being acquitted.Permalink| Comments
BATON ROUGE — A police officer convicted, acquitted and then convicted again of malfeasance after being accused of groping a woman during a traffic stop plans to ask the state Supreme Court to clear him of a crime a second time.
Lawyers for the state and BRPD officer Donald Steele were in court Wednesday to discuss a way forward after Louisiana’s 1st Circuit Court of Appeal said he was guilty of malfeasance, a felony.
A now-suspended judge had convicted Steele of misdemeanor malfeasance, a crime that doesn’t exist, and then acquitted him. The 1st Circuit last month said then-Judge Eboni Johnson Rose didn’t have the right to toss the conviction.
The state Supreme Court suspended Rose pending a review of her work. Justices said Rose’s work undermined faith in the judiciary system.
Steele was accused of grabbing a motorist’s breasts after a traffic stop near LSU in 2021. Rose heard the case herself, without a jury, and convicted Steele.
The 1st Circuit noted last month that no one had asked Rose to set aside the initial verdict, leaving her without the authority to throw out the conviction. It sent the case back to the 19th Judicial District Court, where Judge Michael McDonald has been appointed to work her docket.
Rather than schedule proceedings to sentence Steele, McDonald opted to let the officer’s lawyers go to the state Supreme Court in an effort to reinstate the acquittal. McDonald gave Steele’s lawyers until Oct. 26 to file paperwork with the justices and said he would hold a hearing in early November.
Rose’s error was not without precedent. In an earlier case with the same double-jeopardy implications, the state Supreme Court ordered 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 said in that case that the teacher couldn’t be convicted after being acquitted.