Ladies and gentlemen, today I would like to talk to you about Maryland v. Shatzer. I almost didn't write this article, but my hand was forced.

Who forced me to write this article, you ask? Nancy Pelosi. How did she force me to write this article? She complained, yet again, about Citizens United v. FEC.

You may remember it as the Supreme Court case that absolutely no one ever talked about. It had something to do with campaign finance laws. Exactly what it did depends on your political beliefs, evidently. If you're on the right, it saved democracy and such. If you're on the left, it took America's electoral process and handed it to corporations on a silver platter.

As Major Dieter Hellstrom says in the best movie of the year, Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," I must say I grow quite weary of these monkeyshines. While everyone else and their dog has been busy with a case about campaign finance reform – who knew it was such an exciting topic? – the decision in Maryland v. Shatzer was handed down from the ivory tower of the Supreme Court with little to no fanfare.

Maryland v. Shatzer is an interesting case about the limits on a suspect's Miranda rights, your right to hear your rights when you're getting arrested. To put it in college terms, the next time you do a few too many keg stands and get in a fight with that guy who was totally looking at your girlfriend the wrong way all night, those words the police officer says to you as he throws you in the back of the squad car? Those are your Miranda rights.

Maryland v. Shatzer basically said if you decide to see a lawyer before you talk to police officers, you have two weeks to get everything together before they can question you again. On top of that, it doesn't matter whether you're in prison that whole time or not. In Shatzer's case, he was in prison for one crime and they were interviewing him for another. His claim was that because he was in prison the whole time, he didn't have much choice on whether or not to have a lawyer present. Mr. Shatzer's lawyers argued there was an implied "go along with this or else" — mentality.

What a silly, silly claim. Come on, Mr. Shatzer, everyone knows we make better decisions in prison, where everyone roams free and eats ice cream all day and does whatever they want. That's why all of our members of Congress are kept in prison and the Supreme Court justices are kept in prison too.

While this logic is obviously flawed and everyone knows that prisoners aren't exactly free to do as they please, the Supreme Court ruled that the fact that Shatzer was in prison wasn't important. This meant that Shatzer's testimony was in no way forced and therefore valid for use in court. As for the fact that 14 days is as long as your initial protection goes, well, the majority on the court just pulled that number out of a hat.

I'm guessing the ruling wasn't Shatzer's happiest moment, and while it certainly affected him, the rest of us sadly ignored the case because we were too busy commenting on a seriously intense head shake-off between President Obama and Justice Alito. The fact of the matter is, this ruling is a step backward in terms of the protections that suspects in criminal cases have and needs to be addressed.

I'm not going to say that the Supreme Court's ruling is right or wrong. Some people are saying that from a judicial standpoint, the ruling is perfectly legitimate. I dropped out of my Latin class last semester, so I'm hardly the person who should whine about complex legal procedures. What I will say is, this case shows that legislators really need to be clearer about what protections suspects have. The Supreme Court should not have to randomly decide how many days you get to initially spend with your lawyer. That's not their job, that's the job of legislators. And this is one case where we really need for them to do their job.

Either that or they can argue about health care for a few more months and then go on vacation again. Either way, ladies and gentlemen, either way.

- Joshua Madden is a sophomore in political science and history. Please send comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.