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* In ''[[Wilkerson v. Utah|Wilkerson v. State of Utah]]'', the Supreme Court held that it was not a cruel and unusual punishment for the Territory of Utah to execute a criminal by shooting him, rather than the more common use of hanging. The Court said that cruel and unusual punishments include "punishments of torture" and cases "where the prisoner was drawn or dragged to the place of execution, in treason; or where he was emboweled alive, beheaded, and quartered, in high treason," as well as "public dissection in murder, and burning alive in treason committed by a female." But execution by shooting was not in the category.<ref>{{ussc|name=Wilkerson v. Utah|volume=99|page=130|pin=135-36|year=1878}}.</ref>
* In ''[[Electric chair#First_execution|In re Kemmler]]'', the Supreme Court held execution by electrocution not to be a cruel and unusual punishment. The Court said that "if the punishment prescribed for an offense against the laws of the State were manifestly cruel and unusual as burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel, or the like, it would be the duty of the courts to adjudge such penalties to be within the constitutional prohibition."<ref>{{ussc|name=In re Kemmler|volume=136|page=436|pin=446|year=1890}}.</ref> But electrocution was not in that category.
* In ''[[Trop v. Dulles]]'', the Court held (5-4) that it was cruel and unusual to deprive a native-born citizen of his U.S. citizenship by reason of his conviction by court-martial for wartime desertion. The Court recognized that the death penalty would have been permissible, yet it said, "But it is equally plain that the existence of the death penalty is not a license to the Government to devise any punishment short of death within the limit of its imagination."<ref>{{ussc|name=Trop v. Dulles|volume=356|page=86|pin=99|year=1958}}.</ref> The Court held that making Trop stateless was a cruel and unusual punishment because: "The punishment strips the citizen of his status in the national and international political community. His very existence is at the sufferance of the country in which he happens to find himself."<ref>''Trop'', 356 U.S. at 101.</ref>
* The last in this line of cases before ''Robinson'' was ''[[Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber|Francis v. Resweber]]''. In ''Francis'', the Court considered whether Louisiana could try a second time to electrocute a convicted murderer, after the first attempt failed because of a defect in the State's electric chair. The Court held, 5-4, that re-electrocuting the defendant Francis was not cruel and unusual.<ref>{{ussc|name=Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber|volume=329|page=459|pin=|year=1947}}.</ref>
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