Proponents of the execution of child rapists were disappointed with the Supreme Court’s refusal to reconsider the ban. They presented evidence to the Court showing that under military law, a child rapist could be put to death. Justice Scalia commented that the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment renders capital punishment unacceptable is nonsense. “[T]he proposed Eighth Amendment would have been laughed to scorn if it had read 'no criminal penalty shall be imposed which the Supreme Court deems unacceptable.' "