Richard Riccardi v. United States

Whether the exception to the procedural default rule of Yates v United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957) applies where this Court has held declared a theory of law invalid and given the invalid theory retroactive effect on collateral review of judgments, because it falls within a substantive change of law and not procedural. Did the Second Circuit err in determining petitioner did not meet the burden of establishing an exception to the procedural rule, precluding collateral review of the verdict after this Court’s decisions in Johnson v United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015) and United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. ___ (2019). Whether Petitioner’s § 924 convictions must be set aside because the general verdict form fails to show whether those convictions were premised on the charged Hobbs Act robbery conspiracy, which is not a valid predicate, or in the perpetration of a robbery, which would be a valid predicate.