Cinthya Garcia-Cisneros gave a nervous smile before she spoke through tears.

Dressed in jail scrubs Friday, she addressed the parents of Anna Dieter-Eckerdt, 6, and Abigail Robinson, 11, who were killed when she drove through a leaf pile where the girls were playing.

At trial this month, jurors convicted the 19-year-old of two counts of felony hit and run for failing to identify herself as the driver in the deadly crash. Circuit Judge Rick Knapp sentenced her Friday to probation.

“I should have gone back,” Garcia-Cisneros told the parents during Friday's hearing. “I should have thought about you guys.”

Garcia-Cisneros was driving her boyfriend and younger brother home from a fast-food run that evening, when she veered into a mound of leaves on Main Street, about a block away from her home.

Tom Robinson, Abigail's father and Anna's stepfather, briefly went inside to put a camera away while the girls played in the leaves. Authorities believe they were likely lying in the leaf pile, not visible to Garcia-Cisneros, when they were struck. Garcia-Cisneros testified that when she passed over it, she felt a bump and thought she'd run over a rock.

She continued driving around the block to her family’s home. Her brother hopped on his bicycle and pedaled back to the leaf pile, where he saw Tom Robinson standing over the girls, who were on the ground.

Within minutes of the crash, Garcia-Cisneros learned from her brother that she’d struck the girls.

Bracken McKey, a senior deputy district attorney, told jurors Oregon's hit-and-run statute required Garcia-Cisneros to go back to the scene and provide information to authorities.

Under state sentencing guidelines, Judge Knapp had the option of imposing only probation or a maximum of three years in prison. McKey did not make a sentencing recommendation Friday.

The judge’s decision largely came down to the words of Anna and Abigail’s parents.

From the moment she arrived at the crash scene, Robinson’s wife said she knew it had been an accident.

“I remembering thinking how horrible you would feel when you realized you hit two young girls,” said Susan Dieter-Robinson, mother to Anna and stepmother to Abigail. “You were one block away, I’m sure, scared.”

Garcia-Cisneros’ choice not to come forward was wrong, Dieter-Robinson said. Going through a trial, reliving that night in public was painful, she said. She didn’t want to stay stuck living that night over.

“I’m going to choose forgiveness,” Dieter-Robinson said through tears. “Cinthya, I forgive you, I do.”

And then, she made her wish for Garcia-Cisneros clear: “I don’t want you to spend any more time in jail.

“Live a life of honoring my girls,” she said.

Jane Samuels, fiancée to Anna’s father Randal Eckerdt, asked Garcia-Cisneros to learn from this experience and apply it in her future choices.

“I know that you have a good heart, Cinthya, and that you have a conscience,” Samuels said. “You deserve all the good that this world has to offer.”

When it was Garcia-Cisneros’ turn to speak, she shuffled in shackles to a microphone. She looked at the family and friends – hers, Anna’s and Abigail’s – filling the courtroom gallery. After a pause, she began, tears falling as she spoke.

“There are no words I can give you guys to make you feel better,” she said.

She should have done a lot of things differently Oct. 20, she said. She should have gone back to the scene.

She told the parents she’s tried to picture losing her cousins, the children she loves. She can’t.

“You say you forgive me, and I hope that you do,” she said.

For a moment, the room was quiet but for the sound of sniffing and the hushed voices of Garcia-Cisneros and the girls’ parents speaking directly to each other.

“I do,” Dieter-Robinson responded.

Judge Knapp said the parents' wishes weighed most heavily in his decision. Garcia-Cisneros was young, had no criminal history, had not been driving for long and was an "exemplary" community member, he said. There was no question, he said, that this case would haunt her for the rest of her life.

"The grief in this courtroom is palpable," he said. "I don't want to add to it."

Knapp sentenced her to three years of probation and 250 hours of community service.

Although she was given probation, Garcia-Cisneros remains in the county jail on an immigration hold.

Brought to the United States as a young child, she had temporary permission to be in the country under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, at the time of the crash. The program is available to young undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before turning 16, have been living here for at least five years and are in school, graduated from high school or served in the military. Applicants cannot have certain criminal convictions.

At the Friday sentencing, immigration attorney Courtney Carter said Garcia-Cisneros' next stop is in immigration court.

Carter said this conviction renders Garcia-Cisneros ineligible for the deferred action program.

“She is in grave danger of being deported,” Carter said.

Garcia-Cisneros will likely be taken to an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Wash., and appear in immigration court for a bond hearing. If Garcia-Cisneros qualifies for bond, which could cost her up to $20,000, she may be released while her immigration case is pending, Carter said.

-- Emily E. Smith