By KIM CURTIS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 6, 2007; 8:17 PM

SAN FRANCISCO -- A prosecutor asked the California Supreme Court Tuesday to uphold a murder conviction against a woman whose two dogs fatally mauled a neighbor.

The two Presa Canarios, each weighing more than 100 pounds, pulled Marjorie Knoller down in the hallway of a San Francisco apartment building and attacked Diane Whipple, 33, as Whipple was returning home on Jan. 26, 2001. The dogs tore Whipple's clothes off and left her bleeding to death.

"The defendants were fully on notice they had wild, uncontrollable dogs who were virtually certain to attack," said Amy Haddix, a deputy state attorney general, in oral arguments before the court.

But Dennis Riordan, the lawyer for Knoller, said that for the second-degree murder conviction to stand, Knoller had to know the dogs were more than just dangerous _ she had to know they were going to kill.

A trial jury convicted Knoller of second-degree murder and her husband Robert Noel of manslaughter. The trial judge overturned Knoller's verdict, saying Knoller did not realize the dogs were likely to cause Whipple's death.

An appeals court reinstated the conviction and upheld Noel's manslaughter conviction.

Knoller and Noel said they were keeping the dogs for a a state prisoner, who was a white supremacist. The couple eventually adopted the prisoner as their son.

Knoller and Noel both served two years in prison on manslaughter charges. The murder conviction, if upheld, could mean a sentence of life in prison for Knoller.

The high court was expected to rule within three months.

(This version corrects that Knoller and Noel served two years in prison, not on parole.)