After the Weev trial, I talked to Tor Ekeland.  Rarely did someone want so badly to be a criminal defense lawyer, a trial lawyer, but realized that he was up to his eyeballs in shit while being at step one in preparedness.  Tor had the will, but not the way. Not yet, anyway.  But he was one of those few who would get there, no matter what.

Weev, who has a future as poster boy for internet psychosis if trolling doesn’t pay off, picked his lawyer because of his name, Tor, even before he met him.  Ironically, Ekeland came by it honestly, his parents being Norwegian, but whatever.  Weev summed up his lawyer well:

As for Tor Ekeland, Auernheimer offers his highest praise. Tor, he says, “is a very competent legal scholar and theorist [and] also a relentless motherfucker that takes no bullshit and can hold his own in a street fight.”

At Medium, Adam Penenberg tells the backstory of the Weev case and Tor Ekeland, the lawyer who stood beside the guy who may be the internet’s most notorious troll.  To give you a flavor of what this means, consider:

While the prosecution spoke, weev had his Android tablet out. A linebacker-sized marshal approached from behind and demanded he hand it over.
“No,” Weev replied.

“You want to fuck with me, motherfucker?” the marshal said.

He slammed Auernheimer headfirst into the table, prompting gasps from onlookers as a posse of other marshals surrounded him.

Ekeland sat impassively, eyeing his client with his nose and face smooshed into the table.

“Mr. Ekeland,” U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton said, “would you please take his phone?”

Now wasn’t the time to correct her. He grabbed weev’s tablet out of his hand and tried to act as if people slam his clients into courtroom tables every day.

And this was during sentence, where Weev asked Tor to get him “a big sentence.”  Rather than waste any more of your time here, read Penenberg’s article. It’s fascinating.

And for the record, don’t try this at home. This is not how things usually work out.

H/T Orin Kerr