As any blawger who’s been at this for more than a month knows, emails start flowing in letting us know we have been “honored” by being included in some glorious list of the 100 Best, or 50 Best, or 10 Best, or whatever best of whatever they think will make us feel warm, fuzzy and important.  Unlike the emails with the subject line, “My dearest one,” they play the chord they believe no validation-denied lawyer can ignore.

The email itself is clear. that your blog has been “selected” for their list of the 100 best blogs on criminal justice.  To the new blogger, this comes as a pleasant surprise.  You didn’t know anybody was watching, no less thinking that you’re one of the top 100.  Certainly there are hundred and hundreds of criminal justice blogs, and to make the top 100 is, well, something to be proud of.  Woo hoo!  I’ve made it!!!

I hate to burst your bubble, pal, but it’s just a variation on a scam, the purpose of which is to get you to post about this great “honor” and link back to the source, usually some website with a name like Criminal Justice Degrees or Court Reporter Degrees or Legal Assistant Degrees.  They are playing on your vanity, putting out lists of blogs under varying claims of greatness to entice you to give them the backlink that other websites have to steal or gain by subterfuge.  With just the slightest vanity play, many unaware lawyers will hand them Google Juice and thank them for the opportunity.

Sucker. 

In the past week, Doug Berman posted about such a scam list, The 50 Best Blogs Discussing Capital Punishment (fear not, it’s a no follow link), which he called an “effective and telling compilation.”  Lawprofs are particularly susceptible to this scam, as they are in constant need of the affirmation of worthiness that comes from Ivory Tower isolation.  But they aren’t the only ones.  I recall David Lat at Above the Law posting about being “honored” by one of these scam websites.  He was all ferklempt about it, and I feel just awful about not being able to find the link at the moment.  But if memory serves, ATL made the list of 100 Best Blogs that describe the breasts of Article III judges.  Such an honor, right?

Berman’s point in linking to the post wasn’t to show appreciation at being flattered, but to note how many of the 50 blogs discussing capital punishment supported one side or the other.  This presupposes that it’s a real list, where someone vetted the blogs for substance and worthiness, as opposed to a quick Google search to find the 50 blogs with highest pagerank.

I call the list telling because only three of the linked blogs are listed as pro-death penalty, eight are listed as neutral (including this one), and 39 are anti-death penalty.

Making Doug’s posting about this scam list even funnier is how his pals at Crime & Consequence , where there is no crime unworthy of execution (Bill Otis may dispute this, citing something like jay-walking), have played into the hands of the scammer by repeating the link to make a point.

The reason I bring this up is to re-inforce a theme I have sounded before, namely, that there is a yawning gap between the views of ordinary citizens and those who take themselves to be  —  and sometimes actually are  —  the elite.  On the death penalty and many other things, the media and the academy are way out of step with the public.  This has a number of effects:  It allows elite-run institutions, courts among them, to get away with circumventing rules that normal people would think ought to apply to them.  It distorts the public debate.  And it creates distrust among the the governed about the intentions and fidelity of those doing the governing.

The latter effect seems to me to be closely akin to what has given rise to the Tea Party movement.  In less than five weeks, we may get the public’s verdict about the elite’s massive and sneering condescension.  My prediction:  For the elites, it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Bill got suckered.  Notice how one scam post drew in a lawprof, who took it as a meaningful list that was indicative of something rather than a scam for the easily flattered and unwary, which then slipped way down the hill to prove that lawprofs (or the Elites, as Otis calls them) have lost touch with the public who, like Otis, enjoy a good execution like nobody’s business?  Way to slide, Bill.

Unfortunately, party-pooper Kent Scheidegger, co-blogger with Otis, points out in the first comment that the list is a meaningless scam.

The same site also lists C&C among the top 50 criminal defense blogs. Really.

Kent got it.  Bill, not so much.  Sucker.  In case you’re wondering, SJ was on that list as well.  So too was The Common Scold, which has zero to do with criminal defense, as well as How Appealing, Howard Bashman’s daily aggregation of law stories in the newspapers.  Add these to some dead and worthless blogs on the list and you get the point.  The list is a joke, but the scam still catches its share of the unwary.

While these scam lists, working their magic of flattering those in need of evidence that they aren’t the ugly baby they think they are, are meaningless when it comes to proving your worth, they do serve the purpose of letting the rest of us know that others are so blind, pathetic or unaware that they post the link, bask in the “honor” and otherwise discuss it as if it was real. 

Sucker.