Ronnie Earl BAYLOR, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Wayne ESTELLE, Warden; Attorney General of the State of California, Respondents-Appellants

Ronnie Earl Baylor’s trial counsel failed to follow-up on a criminalist’s report that concluded that a semen sample taken from one of the victims he was convicted of sexually assaulting might not have come from Baylor. Baylor’s petition for writ of habeas corpus filed in the California Supreme Court, which raised ineffective assistance of counsel, was denied without citation to authority; his federal petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 was granted following an evidentiary hearing. The state has timely appealed, challenging the writ under the “old law,” and arguing in addition that the new provisions of § 2254 (enacted April 24, 1996, after the district court’s decision was rendered and opening briefs were filed) in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, (Antiterrorism Act), apply to this appeal and also require reversal.

Because we affirm the district court’s writ of habeas corpus, we must decide whether § 2254(d), upon which the state relies, re quires a different result. Whether or not the new Act will apply to other eases on appeal, Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), has long…