The Oregon Supreme Court has declined to review an Appeals Court decision that overturned the conviction of a driver who killed two young stepsisters lying in a leaf pile near a street curb in Forest Grove in 2013.

The decision Thursday means the Appeals Court's May ruling to vacate Cinthya Garcia-Cisneros' conviction stands. A jury had convicted her of failing to perform the duties of a driver in January 2014.

Bracken McKey, a senior prosecutor in Washington County senior, said in May that the Appeals Court's finding that Garcia-Cisneros' conduct didn't amount to a crime meant the case couldn't be retried.

The Appeals Court said prosecutors didn't establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Garcia-Cisneros knew or had reason to know she injured Anna Dieter-Eckerdt, 6, and Abigail Robinson, 11. Oregon law doesn't have an "implicit requirement" that a driver return to the scene of a traffic accident after later learning that someone was injured or killed, the ruling said.

The prosecution and defense agreed during Garcia-Cisneros' trial that she didn't initially know she injured anyone.

Garcia-Cisneros, then 18, was driving home with her boyfriend and brother from getting food when she drove an SUV through leaves raked near the curb for leaf pick-up. She testified during her trial in January 2014 that she felt a bump while passing through the leaves, but thought she'd run over a rock.

Her brother returned to the scene minutes later and saw a man, later identified as the girls' father, standing over the pile, screaming. The brother returned home and told his sister that she might have hit children. She was arrested the next day.

Garcia-Cisneros was sentenced to three years of probation and 250 hours of community service.

Her boyfriend, Mario Echeverria, was sentenced in December 2013 to 13 months in prison for hindering prosecution related to the crash.

After her conviction, Garcia-Cisneros was taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma because she wasn't an American citizen. She was brought to the U.S. from Mexico as a 4-year-old and had temporary permission to be in the country legally under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

An immigration judge dismissed her case in August 2014 and she was released from custody. Her attorney in the deportation case told The Oregonian/OregonLive at the time that the ruling put her back under deferred action but she could be removed from the U.S. if she committed another crime.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey