Pedro Vega v. Charles Ryan

ORDER

The Opinion filed November 13, 2013, and appearing at 735 F.3d 1093 , is with drawn. It may not be cited as precedent by or to this court or any district court of the Ninth Circuit.

OPINION

Petitioner Pedro Imperial Vega was convicted of sexually abusing his stepdaughter. In this appeal of the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Vega argues that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective when he failed to review Vega’s client file and, as a result, failed to call as a witness a Catholic priest to whom the victim had recanted her allegations of her stepfather’s sexual abuse.

We hold that reasonable jurists could not disagree that counsel’s failing deprived Vega of his constitutional right to effective counsel. Accordingly, the state court’s decision was an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The district court erred by denying Vega’s petition and we reverse.

I. BACKGROUND

Pedro Vega was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, molestation of a child, and three counts of sexual abuse of a child under fifteen, based on incidents that occurred…