A Texas man accused of killing the mother of his child will retain his parental rights pending trial, a judge says

A Texas man charged with manslaughter after hitting the mother of his 1-year-old child with his car will retain his parental rights, a judge has ruled.

Ulise DeLao, 29, was arrested May 28 in Canyon, Texas, and charged with intoxication manslaughter after police were dispatched to a vehicle accident involving a pedestrian. DeLao struck 27-year-old Brittany Torres as she stood outside the vehicle, and she was pronounced dead at the scene, Canyon police said at the time.

An online fundraiser for Torres' family said she and DeLao were in a relationship.

Randall County court records show he is charged with manslaughter. In August, a grand jury declined to indict DeLao on an enhanced murder charge. He pleaded not guilty shortly after his arrest, said his attorney, Jesse Quackenbush.

On Monday, a Randall County judge ruled in a separate case that he can retain parental rights to his 1-year-old child with Torres.

The day after Torres' death, her mother, Jaqueline Sanchez, filed a petition in Randall County Civil Court to assume guardianship of DeLao and Torres' 1-year-old son, Law&Crime and local ABC station KVII-TV reported. NBC News has reviewed the case summary for this case.

However, Judge James W. Anderson on Monday denied the request to terminate DeLao's parental rights, media reported.

“The judge refused to terminate his parental rights,” Quackenbush told NBC News. “There is no intention on the part of the court to deprive him of parental rights now or in the future. The judge made a final, non-appealable decision based on his discretion that there was no evidence of termination of parental rights.”

Quackenbush said the judge made “absolutely the right decision.”

He said there was no intentional crime in the May death. “After carefully reviewing the matter, our grand jury in Randall County, Texas, concluded that there was no evidence of intentional conduct and that this was, at best, a case of manslaughter and accidental death,” he said on Grand jury refusal to indict DeLao for murder in this case.

Sanchez's attorney did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment Thursday.

Quackenbush said his client admitted to running over his girlfriend, but that it was accidental.

“She had gotten out of the car at her house extremely drunk, where my client drove her, and he drove away like normal, and she was in the back of the car, and he didn't know it, and she was run over and accidentally killed,” said he.

Records show DeLao was released on $250,000 bail in October. Under the terms of his prison sentence, he is not allowed to consume alcohol or drugs, is not allowed to leave Potter, Randall or Armstrong counties, surrenders passports, has a device installed in his vehicle that uses “a mechanism for analyzing pulmonary respiration” and a GPS tracking device carry.

Quackenbush said DeLao, whom he described as an honorably discharged veteran who served six years in the Marine Corps with no criminal record, intends to fight the manslaughter charge.