Robert H. Jackson

“ Security against unlawful searches is more likely to be attained by resort to search warrants than by reliance upon the caution and sagacity of petty officers while acting under the excitement that attends the capture of persons accused of crime. * * *'↑ 'Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house, furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant. ”

“ Any other rule would undermine 'the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects,' [8] and would obliterate one of the most fundamental distinctions between our form of government, where officers are under the law, and the police-state where they are the law. ”

“ We cannot sustain defendant's contention, erroneously made, on the strength of Taylor v. United States, 286 U.S. 1, 52 S.Ct. 466, 76 L.Ed. 951, that odors cannot be evidence sufficient to constitute probable grounds for any search. That decision held only that odors alone do not authorize a search without warrant. If h e presence of odors is testified to before a magistrate and he finds the affiant qualified to know the odor, and it is one sufficiently distinctive to identify a forbidden substance, this Court has never held such a basis insufficient to justify issuance of a search warrant. ”

“ United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 68 S.Ct. 222.↑ The Government brief states that the question presented is 'whether there was probable cause for the arrest of petitioner for possessing opium prepared for smoking and the search of her room in a hotel incident thereto for contraband opium, where experienced narcotic agents unmistakably detected and traced the pungent, identifiable odor of burning opium emanating from her room and knew, before they arrested her, that she was the only person in the room.'↑ The Government also suggests that 'In a sense, the arrest was made in 'hot pursuit'. ”