Alvarez

MEMORANDUM *

This is an interlocutory appeal by California death row inmate and habeas corpus petitioner Manuel Machado Alvarez. The magistrate judge ordered Alvarez to produce certain ordinarily privileged documents to the government in order for the government to defend against Alvarez’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The district court denied reconsideration of the magistrate judge’s order, and it is from this denial that Alvarez now appeals.

The government challenges our jurisdiction. The district court’s order is not a final judgment, but it fits within “[that small class] of orders which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.” See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 , 69 S.Ct. 1221 , 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949); Bittaker v. Woodford, 331 F.3d 715, 717-18 (9th Cir.2003) (en banc). We have jurisdiction to hear this appeal.

On the merits of this appeal, our decision is controlled by our en banc decision in Bittaker . A habeas…