S.C. Judge Halts Execution of Death Row Inmate With Schizophrenia Delusions

John Richard Wood sits on death row in South Carolina, convicted of a crime that happened a quarter-century ago. In December 2000, during a routine traffic stop in Greenville County, he shot state trooper Eric Nicholson five times. In the chaos that followed, he fired at other officers, struck one in the face with a bullet fragment, and eventually hijacked a truck before police brought him down. A jury sentenced him to death in February 2002. For more than two decades, that sentence has stood.

But last week, a judge stopped the machinery of execution.

Judge Grace Knie ruled that Wood cannot be put to death because his mind will not allow it. Wood, now 59, suffers from schizophrenia so severe that he has lost the ability to understand the basic facts of his own case. He cannot rationally talk to his lawyers. He does not comprehend why he is being punished or what that punishment means. Most crucially, under South Carolina law, a person must possess a rational understanding of their crimes and their impending execution in order to be executed. Wood does not.

The evidence for this conclusion came from three mental health experts—a psychiatrist hired by prosecutors and a psychiatrist and psychologist hired by Wood's defense team. All three agreed on the same diagnosis. Wood believes he is immortal. He has convinced himself that he has already died three times while on death row, and that if the state executes him, he will simply be resurrected. He also believes he has already received a pardon from Governor Henry McMaster. When experts asked him about the crime itself, Wood acknowledged receiving the death sentence but insisted that law enforcement officers were fabricating evidence against him, trying to frame him for a rape he did not commit. He told them that the judge and courtroom staff at his 2002 trial were not ordinary people but agents of a deity he calls "Beloved Kevin Rudolph," a divine being locked in a cosmic battle for control of the planet. Wood believes he was given wings and immortality to fight on this deity's behalf.

Knie's ruling is not the final word. South Carolina's Supreme Court must now review her decision and determine whether to uphold it or overturn it. Until that review is complete, Wood's execution warrant remains paused. His original conviction and sentence stand unchanged—only the execution itself is halted.

Wood is the first death row inmate in South Carolina to be found incompetent for execution since the state restarted capital punishment in September 2024. That restart came after a 13-year hiatus during which the state could not obtain lethal injection drugs. When executions resumed, South Carolina had added firing squad as an execution method. Seven people have been executed since then, three of them by firing squad. Wood would have been next in line had the judge not intervened.

The case sits at the intersection of two competing imperatives in American criminal law: the state's power to carry out sentences imposed by juries, and the constitutional prohibition against executing someone whose mental illness prevents them from understanding what is happening to them. How South Carolina's highest court resolves this tension will shape what happens to Wood and potentially affect other death row inmates struggling with severe mental illness.