I. Whether this Court's decision in Patterson v. New York (1977), which permitted placing the burden on a criminal defendant to establish mitigating facts lessening a penalty, has been abrogated by Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) and Alleyne v. United States (2013), which made clear that a state must prove every element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, including those facts that establish the statutory punishment, and especially those that facts that aggravate a mandatory minimum or statutory maximum sentence?

II. Whether, when state court interpretations of state law point in opposite directions, with differing federal constitutional consequences, must a federal habeas court defer to one interpretation over the other in its deferential review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)?

Whether Patterson v. New York has been abrogated by Apprendi and Alleyne