SCO Judge Draws Groklaw Libel Case.

On Tuesday Jeff Merkey, Novell's erstwhile chief scientist, went ahead and filed that threatened pro se libel suit against open source leader Bruce Perens, Groklaw editor Pamela Jones, Groklaw, Slashdot and a motley cast of other characters in federal court in Utah and, by the luck of the draw, the case was assigned to Judge Dale Kimball, the judge hearing the SCO v IBM case that Groklaw has been following in its own peculiar way.

Merkey said the clerk of the court swore it was random selection.

Thanks to the Internet, the court apparently knew it was on its way.

We would take the assignment as judicial efficiency.

The suit is, um, very pro se indeed, but if it actually gets to trial, it promises to make the Michael Jackson trial look tame. Heck, for starters, Merkey's managed to work in Indians, Mormons, sexual harassment, peyote and terrorism.

Aside from libel and defamation, he's charging the defendants with violating his First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights as well as tortious interference.

One nub of the suit says that Perens posted messages on LWN.net saying, "Merkey should be placed in a file of people to be killed" after Merkey offered to buy a fork of the Linux kernel for $50,000 for a project for the Cherokee Nation.

According to Merkey, Linus Torvalds' lieutenant Alan Cox, who works for Red Hat, suggested the buy-a-fork idea.

Anyway, Merkey attached a copy of the sealed settlement agreement between him and Novell that features in the suit and the agreement was accidentally scanned into the Pacer system where the Groklaw and SCOfacts.org mobs immediately fell on it and merrily posted it.

Judge Kimball then issued an order taking it off Pacer, but Merkey says Groklaw and SCOfacts transported it to a server in Czechoslovakia and continued to point to it. He reckons this is a slap in the fact to the judge's order and says he intends to ask the judge for a temporary restraining order stripping Groklaw and SCOfacts of their right to post any more court documents of any kind until his suit is settled.

Geez, this is better than daytime television. Heck, it appears it is daytime television. Merkey hung up the phone saying a camera crew was there to interview him.

The suit is posted at www.merkeylaw.com.