Did the Ninth Circuit fail to apply the correct deferential standard of review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) and misapply Supreme Court precedents regarding burden-shifting in criminal cases?

From 2011 until his arrest in 2013, Respondent Bradley Bieganski operated a girls -only private Christian home -school. Bieganski was arrested after several girls accused him of touching their genitals when the y were between the ages of 6 and 9. Bieganski was subsequently convicted of three counts of child molestation. His convictions and sentences were affirmed by the Arizona courts ; this Court denied his petition for writ of certiorari, and the district court subsequently denied federal habeas corpus relief . However, the Ninth Circuit reversed the judgment of the district court, and found that the Arizona statute s under which Bieganski was convicted unconstitutionally shifted the burden of disproving an essential element of the crime --sexual motivation -contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Question Presented is: Did the Ninth Circuit fail to apply the correct deferential standard of review , as set ou t in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and also misappl y this Court’s precedents, set out in Martin and Patterson , regarding when an affirmative defense improperly shifts the burden of proof to a criminal defendant, in violation of the Due Process Clause?