Raymond A. Richardson v. Tom Harlan, Superintendent, Huttonsville Correctional Center

Petitioner was charged in West Virginia with robbery committed by a particular means – by the threat of the use of force. At trial, the State proceeded on a different theory – that Petitioner had committed robbery by engaging in actual violence against the victim. Petitioner’s counsel did not object to this shift in the State’s theory and Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to more than a century in prison for that and related offenses. State and federal courts affirmed Petitioner’s conviction, concluding he had not received ineffective assistance of counsel. This Petition presents the issue of whether a criminal defendant receives ineffective assistance of counsel when his counsel fails to object to the State’s shift in theory, from one method of committing an offense to another, where that shift deprives the defendant of the notice required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -1-