In the case of Kentucky Department of Corrections et al. v. Thompson et al., 1988, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that an inmate does not have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in receiving visitors, which would require due process before being denied visitation rights. The court held that state regulations did not create such an entitlement and therefore no constitutional violation could occur when visitation was denied without a hearing or other procedural safeguards. This decision reversed a lower court ruling which had found for the inmate on this issue.

In the dissenting opinion for Kentucky Department of Corrections et al. v. Thompson et al., Justice Blackmun, joined by Justices Brennan and Marshall, argued that the majority's decision was a departure from established precedent regarding due process rights in prison settings. They contended that prisoners should not be stripped of all constitutional protections simply because they are incarcerated; rather, they maintained that certain fundamental rights must still apply within prisons to prevent arbitrary and capricious actions by prison officials. In this case specifically, they believed the prisoner had a liberty interest in receiving visitors which could not be arbitrarily denied without violating his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The dissenters criticized the majority for narrowing down what constitutes as "liberty" too much and warned against potential abuses of power if such decisions were left solely at discretion of prison administrators without any judicial oversight.