Barack Obama was another supporter. In 2008, he even criticized a Supreme Court decision forbidding execution for criminals who rape children. “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstance, the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution,” he said. In 2015, Obama said he found the death penalty “deeply troubling” but was not ready to abandon it.