SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A state appeals court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for one of two dogs who mauled a woman to death in her apartment hallway.

Diane Whipple died Jan. 26 after the attack. Her neighbors, Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, were caring for the dogs at the time and maintained they were generally gentle and well-behaved pets.

A dog named Bane, the primary aggressor in the mauling, was destroyed immediately afterward.

The second dog, a 120-pound female Presa Canario named Hera, was declared "vicious and dangerous' in February by a police sergeant who ordered the animal to be destroyed.

David Blatte, a lawyer representing Knoller and Noel, had argued that the police sergeant who declared Hera vicious was biased because his department also was investigating the fatal attack.

Knoller and Noel face involuntary manslaughter charges in Whipple's death. Knoller also faces a second-degree murder charge because she was in the hallway during the attack.