Unknown Names

Know Your Rights Two-Part Finale — References & Further Reading

About This Episode

You know their stories.

Actually...

you probably don't.

You know Miranda because you've heard his name on TV a thousand times.

You may have heard of stop and frisk.

You probably know students don't have quite the same privacy at school.

You've heard people argue about burning the American flag, eminent domain, and restraining orders.

But somewhere behind every one of those rules...

there was a person.

And some of their stories are absolutely wild.

A man whose name became one of the most recognizable phrases in American policing—and trust me, once you meet the man behind that name, you're going to have some thoughts.

A fourteen-year-old girl who got caught smoking in a school bathroom and somehow ended up changing the rules for millions of students.

A woman who bought an overgrown little house, painted it bright pink, and then found herself fighting all the way to the Supreme Court because somebody else decided they had bigger plans for the land underneath it.

And a mother who did exactly what we're always told to do when we're afraid of someone—she went to court, got a restraining order...

and then found out what that piece of paper could actually guarantee her.

None of these people woke up expecting their names—or in one case, just three initials—to end up attached to constitutional law.

But one moment created another.

Then another.

And the ripple kept moving.

That's why I called this finale...

Unknown Names.

This is one story told in two parts, closing out six months of Know Your Rights.

Below you'll find the research and references used for both episodes. I've separated everything by part and case so you can dig into whichever story sent you down the rabbit hole.

And as always...

don't just take my word for it.

Read the sources for yourself.

Part One

Three completely different people.

A man inside a Phoenix interrogation room.

Another man being watched by a detective on a Cleveland sidewalk.

And a fourteen-year-old girl who probably thought getting caught smoking at school was going to be the biggest problem she had that day.

It wasn't.

Miranda v. Arizona

Ernesto Miranda

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)Oyez — Miranda v. ArizonaJustia — Miranda v. Arizona

Terry v. Ohio

John Terry

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)Oyez — Terry v. OhioJustia — Terry v. Ohio

New Jersey v. T.L.O.

T.L.O.

New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985)Oyez — New Jersey v. T.L.O.Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding, 557 U.S. 364 (2009)

Part Two

And somehow...

Part Two gets even crazier.

A protester sets fire to an American flag.

A woman refuses to give up her little pink house.

And a mother spends hours asking police to find her three daughters.

Three stories that couldn't sound more different...

until you see where they end up.

Texas v. Johnson

Gregory Lee Johnson

Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989)Oyez — Texas v. JohnsonUnited States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990)Flag Protection Act of 1989Executive Order 14341 — Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag (2025)Federal Register — Executive Order 14341

Kelo v. City of New London

Susette Kelo

Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005)Oyez — Kelo v. City of New LondonInstitute for Justice — Kelo v. City of New London

Castle Rock v. Gonzales

Jessica Gonzales — now Jessica Lenahan

Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005)Oyez — Town of Castle Rock v. GonzalesJessica Gonzales/Lenahan's statements and testimonyInter-American Commission on Human Rights — Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) et al. v. United States, Report No. 80/11 (2011)

About the Research

For Unknown Names, I went back to Supreme Court opinions, court records, government documents, testimony, historical reporting, and other sources to piece together not only what the courts decided...

but how these people ended up there in the first place.

You'll hear my opinions throughout both episodes—and believe me, I have a few—but I've kept those separate from what the available record actually establishes.

There are also places where history simply doesn't give us a clean answer. I'm not filling in those blanks just to make the story sound better. If we don't know...

we don't know.

Know Your Rights is for educational and informational purposes and isn't personal legal advice.