Cervantes

MEMORANDUM *

California state prisoner Ruben Cervantes appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition. Cervantes claims that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel because his trial lawyer failed to call Cervantes’s mother and sister as alibi witnesses and failed to investigate two other potential witnesses who could have cor *803 roborated Cervantes’s alibi and/or exonerated him. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. Without reaching the merits of Cervantes’s ineffective assistance claim, we reverse and remand to the district court for an evidentiary hearing.

Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we reference them only as necessary to explain our decision. Although the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) limits a district court’s discretion to conduct evidentiary hearings, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (e)(2), Cervantes’s request for a hearing is governed by pre-AEDPA standards because Cervantes was diligent in seeking to develop the factual basis of his claim in state court. See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 437 , 120 S.Ct. 1479 , 146 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000); Baja v.…