Wagan

MEMORANDUM **

California state prisoner Manuel Atienza Wagan appeals the dismissal as untimely of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition, challenging his jury-trial conviction and life sentence for attempted first-degree murder. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253 . We vacate and remand.

Wagan contends that the district court erred in dismissing his § 2254 petition as untimely because he is entitled to equitable tolling for the period that his previous mixed federal petition was pending in the district court. Wagan also argues that the *690 court erred in denying his request to hold his previous mixed federal petition in abeyance while he exhausted his unexhausted claims in state court. These contentions may have merit.

At the time the district court dismissed Wagan’s federal petition, the court did not have the benefit of our decisions in Ford v. Hubbard, 330 F.3d 1086, 1100 (9th Cir. 2003) (as amended) (allowing a second petition to relate back to the first petition after concluding that the district court erred when it failed to inform a pro se petitioner that, on the face of his first petition, he would be time-barred upon returning to federal court with…