during his tenure on the court, voelker wrote over 100 opinions, both majority opinions and dissents. in 1958, he authored what was the originally the dissent in the case "people v. hildabridle". that case centered around a nudist colony near battle creek. local police on their own initiative investigated the community even though local residents had not lodged any complaints. one officer swore out a warrant used to arrest the community members. chief justice john r. dethmers wrote the original majority opinion to uphold the convictions of the naturists. in the dissent, voelker proclaimed "the entire search-and-arrest process 'indecent—indeed the one big indecency we find in this whole case ... it seems that we are now prepared to burn down the house of constitutional safeguards in order to roast a few nudists. i will have none of it." in an example of the humor used in his opinions, in noting the proclivities of the naturist, "if eccentricity were a crime, then all of us were felons." this dissenting opinion was so convincing that it swayed justice george clifton edwards, jr., one of those in the majority, to change sides, converting the dissent to a majority. on voelker's request, his opinion was published unaltered, starting with the words "i dissent", an anomaly in published majority opinions of the court. in 1962, political scientist s. sidney ulmer noted that voelker was the second-most influential member of the court in his short tenure.