Arellano

MEMORANDUM ***

The petitioner, Ismael Arellano, challenges his conviction in California state court for the murder of Arturo Medino on the grounds that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance. We previously held that Arellano was entitled to habeas relief unless “Arellano’s trial counsel’s performance in handling Arellano’s testimony was justified on grounds other than his attempt to limit cross-examination.” Arellano v. Borg, 97 Fed.Appx. 84, 88 (9th Cir.2004). Because no other justification was apparent in the record presented in the previous appeal, we remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether there were other reasons for the trial counsel’s performance. Id. at 87-88 . On remand, the district court determined that the evidentiary hearing did not produce any alternative justification for the attorney’s performance and, consistent with the limited scope of our remand, issued the habeas writ. We affirm.

I.

In light of our previous opinion in this case, we offer here only a limited recitation of the facts. We focus only on the facts relevant to the remand and the facts developed at the evidentiary hearing.

At trial, Arellano was represented by…