Justice Robert Jackson's majority opinion expounded on the importance of warrants, stating they were required by the Fourth Amendment.

"[3] If government agents could search dwellings based on their own determination of probable cause, the Fourth Amendment would become a "nullity," leaving the people's security in their homes to "the discretion of police officers.

"[3] In this case, the strong smell of opium was surely probable cause, meaning the agents would have had no trouble obtaining a warrant if they had applied for one.

"[5] Jackson would revisit this idea the next year in Brinegar v. United States, when he wrote, "Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.

The government must point to "exceptional circumstances" to demonstrate why its officers should be "excused from the constitutional duty of presenting their evidence to a magistrate.

[8] Pro-warrant rhetoric reached its crest in the landmark case Katz v. United States, when the Court wrote that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable.