The District Court issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the Sheriff from outright denying KQED and other news media from visiting the jail and bringing audio and video recording devices.

Justice Burger held "the media have no special right of access to the Alameda County Jail different from or greater than that accorded the public generally."

"Whether the government should open penal institutions in the manner sought by respondents is a question of policy which a legislative body might appropriately resolve one way or the other."

The majority's application of Pell v. Procunier to the case was criticized because it "was an isolated limitation on the efforts of the press to gather information about those conditions" imposed only after disciplinary problems had occurred.

According to a 2009 report by Human Rights Watch, focussing on prison conditions in the United States, it was asserted that the absence of "the kind of public and media scrutiny that helps prevent abuses of power in other government institutions" is particularly notable within correctional facilities.