South Carolina Judge Rules Death-Sentenced Prisoner John Wood Not Competent for Execution

A South Carolina cir­cuit court judge has found that death-sen­tenced pris­on­er John Wood can­not be exe­cut­ed because of his severe schiz­o­phre­nia. The con­sti­tu­tion­al thresh­olds estab­lished by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and clar­i­fied in Panetti v. Quarterman (2007) and Madison v. Alabama (2018) deter­mine that a pris­on­er may not be exe­cut­ed if they are unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son they are being put to death. Judge Grace Knie issued a 12-page writ­ten deci­sion on April 22, 2026, tem­porar­i­ly paus­ing the issuance of a death war­rant for Mr. Wood. The rul­ing makes Mr. Wood the first death-sen­tenced pris­on­er in South Carolina to be found not com­pe­tent for exe­cu­tion since the state resumed exe­cu­tions in September 2024, fol­low­ing a 13-year pause.

Three men­tal health experts — a psy­chi­a­trist retained by pros­e­cu­tors, as well as a psy­chi­a­trist and psy­chol­o­gist retained by Mr. Wood’s defense team — all agreed that he failed the state’s two-pronged legal stan­dard for exe­cu­tion com­pe­ten­cy. Citing tes­ti­mo­ny from a two-day hear­ing in March 2026, Judge Knie found that Mr. Wood believes he is immor­tal, has already ​“died three times on death row,” and if the state exe­cutes him, he will be res­ur­rect­ed. Mr. Wood also main­tains the belief that the gov­er­nor of South Carolina has already issued him a par­don, and thus, his death sen­tence no longer stands.

Mr. Wood’s delu­sions extend to his under­stand­ing of his orig­i­nal tri­al pro­ceed­ings. He has stat­ed he believes police fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence against him, and he is con­vinced that the judge and court staff who presided over his 2002 pro­ceed­ings were ser­vants of a super­nat­ur­al fig­ure he refers to as ​“Beloved Kevin Rudolph,” whom he under­stands to be a deity engaged in a strug­gle for con­trol of the world. Mr. Wood believes he has been endowed with wings and immor­tal­i­ty in order to par­tic­i­pate in this bat­tle. The men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als who eval­u­at­ed Mr. Wood tes­ti­fied that his men­tal health con­di­tion has dete­ri­o­rat­ed dur­ing his incar­cer­a­tion and is unlike­ly to improve. Mr. Wood has also refused to take his pre­scribed antipsy­chot­ic med­ica­tion, and under 1993 state prece­dent, the state can­not com­pel a pris­on­er to take a psy­chi­atric med­ica­tion for the sole pur­pose of mak­ing them fit for execution.

Mr. Wood was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2002 for shoot­ing and killing South Carolina State Trooper Eric Nicholson dur­ing a traf­fic stop in Greenville County in December 2000. Judge Knie’s rul­ing must now be reviewed by the South Carolina Supreme Court, which may uphold or over­turn her decision.

South Carolina resumed exe­cu­tions in September 2024 after a 13-year pause stem­ming in part from the state’s stat­ed inabil­i­ty to obtain lethal injec­tion drugs. Since resum­ing exe­cu­tions, sev­en men have been executed.

In Texas, attor­neys for John Rubio, who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on November 12, 2026, recent­ly filed a peti­tion in Cameron County assert­ing that he is also not com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. He has been diag­nosed by sev­er­al men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als with schiz­o­phre­nia, and the fil­ing indi­cates that sev­er­al men­tal health experts believe he was legal­ly insane at the time of the crime in 2003.