A South Carolina death row prisoner who insists he has already died and been resurrected multiple times has been declared mentally unfit for execution, raising fresh scrutiny over how the justice system handles severely mentally ill inmates.

John Richard Wood, 56, has spent more than twenty years on death row for the killing of state trooper Eric Nicholson during a traffic stop in Greenville. Authorities said Nicholson pulled Wood over in December 2000, and Wood opened fire, fatally shooting the trooper before fleeing. During the ensuing chase, another officer was wounded by a bullet fragment before Wood was captured.

In recent competency proceedings, three mental health experts told the court that Wood’s schizophrenia has produced fixed delusions that prevent him from rationally understanding his punishment. According to court records, Wood believes he is immortal, claims he has already been executed three times, and insists he was brought back to life after each supposed death.

The presiding judge wrote that Wood is convinced he would simply be resurrected again if the state carried out his execution and that he wrongly believes he has already been pardoned by the governor. Those beliefs, the court found, are not abstract religious ideas but central to his inability to grasp the finality and purpose of the death sentence.

Wood’s delusions have long shadowed his case. During his 2002 trial, he reportedly maintained that the court system was acting on behalf of a deity he called “Beloved Kevin Rudolph,” whom he imagined locked in a supernatural struggle for control of the world. He also claimed to possess wings and to have been granted immortality to wage what he described as a personal war against the justice system.

Relying on evaluations from two psychiatrists and a psychologist, the judge concluded that while Wood intellectually understands he has been sentenced to death, his psychosis so distorts his perception that he cannot comprehend the reality or consequences of execution. Under constitutional standards, that makes him ineligible for execution.

The ruling now goes to the South Carolina Supreme Court, which will decide whether to uphold the finding of incompetence or clear the way for the state to resume efforts to carry out Wood’s death sentence.