In the case of Hicks v. Miranda, 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of District Attorney Hicks and against Walnut Properties' owner Miranda. The issue at hand was whether a California state court's decision that a certain film was not obscene could prevent subsequent prosecutions for showing the same film without violating due process rights under Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that since there had been no final judgment on appeal from an adverse determination by a three-judge federal court declaring state law unconstitutional, it did not bar further prosecution under valid laws for conduct occurring after such declaration but before final appellate adjudication thereof; hence, it does not violate due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment to prosecute defendants who relied upon lower federal court's injunction against enforcement of obscenity laws later stayed by this Court pending review hereof.

In the dissenting opinion for Hicks v. Miranda, Justice William Rehnquist argued that the Supreme Court should not have taken jurisdiction over this case as it did not present a substantial federal question. He contended that California's obscenity law was consistent with standards set by previous Supreme Court rulings and thus there was no need to review its constitutionality at the federal level. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's interpretation of "prior restraint," arguing that seizing copies of an allegedly obscene film after it has been shown does not constitute prior restraint but is instead a legitimate action under state law aimed at preventing further distribution of potentially illegal material. Finally, he criticized his colleagues for unnecessarily expanding First Amendment protections in ways they were never intended to cover.