IANAL and you should talk to one, but I'm tending to the theory that you might want to force him to serve you. The point is that I don't know that the waiver of service constitutes service.

If you are served in your home state, then that state and by extension its federal district courts have personal jurisdiction over JVM. This means:

1. When there is a final judgment against him, you can sue for damages in CA. This would include dismissal with prejudice, and you probably need to file a motion asking for the suit to be declared frivolous.

2. Service in your state may bring him under the CA anti-SLAPP law. Most of his claims are Utah state law claims federalized by diversity jurisdiction, assuming the civil rights conspiracy is dismissed. So the sequence would be get the federal law claims dismissed and then sue in federal court in CA with your own diversity jurisdiction claim. I don't know that this will be allowed, but if it is, you want to preserve the option. Point 1 above isn't much use against someone with no assets, but the CA anti-SLAPP law has teeth.

Go to the EFF and the ACLU and see if you can get legal advice, even if you can't get complete representation. It's important not to screw up the initial procedural steps.

3. The downside of refusing to waive service, is that it reduces your time to respond.

4. You have 30 days to return the waiver of service and 60 days from then to make your response. Should you be served, you have 20 days to respond. Should you be served after you have recieved the waiver, but before the 30 days have expired, you shouldn't be on the hook for the cost of service, since the service was voluntary.

5. If he's going to serve you, you don't have any time to waste. You need to get your motion to dismiss drafted. Go and look at a guide to civil procedure for lawyers (a sort of cheat sheet with forms and explanations). Westlaw sells a bunch of them in the $30 to $100 range. I've ordered Federal Civil Rules Handbook, 2005 ed. and Friedenthal, Kane and Miller's Hornbook on Civil Procedure, 4th. I ordered expedited shipping, but it will probably still take nearly a week, so you may not want to wait for my opinion, even if it was worth waiting for.