The case extended the situations under which search warrants are required as they reversed a robbery conviction made on the basis of evidence obtained in violation of the holding.

Eyewitness accounts and evidence left at the scene led the police to a hotel elsewhere in the region where Stoner was staying.

Two days later, detectives went to the hotel and, with the desk clerk's permission, searched the room and found further evidence linking him to the robbery.

Stoner unsuccessfully challenged the admissibility of the evidence at trial and on appeal, since police had lacked a warrant and relied on the clerk's permission.

"[A] guest in a hotel room is entitled to constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures" Stewart wrote.

The only other opinion was Justice John Marshall Harlan II, who concurred in the holding but dissented from the disposition reversing the conviction.

Several years later, in Katz v. United States, the Court abandoned that doctrine entirely in favor of the reasonable expectation of privacy test now in use.

The court cited many holdings in California case law to the extent that it did not matter whether the arrest took place before or after the search.

The court found that the record reflected that much of that two-day period was involved in transporting him back to the Los Angeles area from Las Vegas, and allowing him to speak with his parole officer per his request, who had advised him to cooperate with the police.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed an amicus curiae brief on Stoner's behalf.

[9] Four years earlier, he recalled, in Jones v. United States, the Court had held that "anyone legitimately on the premises" had standing to challenge the search of the property.

[10] "Our decisions make clear that the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment are not to be eroded by strained applications of the law of agency or by unrealistic doctrines of 'apparent authority,'" Stewart wrote.

It was implicit in a hotel stay that management, cleaning staff and maintenance could enter the room without a guest's permission in order to fulfill their job duties.

[11] Going back to Johnson v. United States,[14] a 1948 case that had suppressed drug evidence obtained by police who were let in to a hotel room by the occupant after knocking on the door, the Court had held that "a guest in a hotel room is entitled to constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures," Stewart wrote.