On April 28, 1977, Artie Bailey, an inmate at Soledad prison and editor of that prison's newspaper, the Star News, and the Prisoner's Union, as a subscriber to that newsletter, filed suit against the Department of Corrections, and Otis Loggins as superintendent. The Star News is an inmate newspaper, which is financed out of the Inmate Welfare Fund, not by taxpayer money. The paper contains articles promoting the interests of various prison groups, as well as articles critical of prison administration.

The lawsuit concerned two articles written in September of 1976 by inmate Willie Brandt, which concerned two lectures given at Soledad, one by Professor Amundson of the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California, and another by Ms. Lytle, deputy legal affairs secretary to the Governor. The articles were approved for publication by editor Bailey and by civilian journalism instructor Estin. The articles were rejected for publication by Associate Superintendent Dobreff, who was in charge of supervising the newspaper's content, as well as by the acting superintendent and his staff.

In complaince with the grievance procedures at the prison, editor Bailey filed an appeal and requested that the authorities grant permission to publish the articles, and that the Department of Corrections establish guidelines to govern the control of newspaper content. During the trial, the prison administration dropped their objection to the publication of the articles, and thus the case became about the power of the administration to reject articles for publication in the Star News, and the process for appealing that decision. The trial court sought to address those issues, and required the Department of Corrections to adopt new regulations.

After a careful examination of the content of the Star News, the court wrote, "The issue before us...is whether a prison newspaper intended to serve and serving as a limited forum for prisoner expression enjoys any protection under the First Amendment or correlative California provisions." The court rejects censorship of the inmate paper, except for articles which "could reasonably be deemed a threat to the security of the institution or which describe the making of a weapon, explosive, poison, or destructive device." They also write, "...although the department retains greater powers to regulate and censor then would be appropriate outside the prison walls, it does not have total or arbitrary power."