the petitioner is not significantly prejudiced by the delayed focus on the limitation issue, and "determine whether the interests of justice would be better served" by addressing the merits or by dismissing the petition as time barred. The Court also stated that a district court would not have the discretion to disregard the choice of a defendant to intelligently waive the limitations defense. In that case, however, the Court believed the Magistrate Judge gave Day due notice and a fair opportunity to show why the limitation period should not yield dismissal of the petition, and there was nothing to suggest that the State "strategically" withheld the defense or chose to relinquish it. The record instead indicated that the miscalculation was "merely an inadvertent error." Stevens' dissent Justice Stevens, though believing the case was rightly decided, dissented from the Court's decision to announce its judgment when a relevant case would be decided later in the term. Justice Breyer, who believed the case was wrongly decided, also joined in Stevens' dissent on this issue. The Court had recently granted certiorari in Lawrence v. Florida, a case which would answer the question of whether Day's petition was actually barred by the statute of limitations. Stevens wrote, "It seems improvident to affirm a possibly erroneous Court of Appeals judgment that dismissed Day's habeas petition without an evaluation of its merits when we have already granted certiorari to address the issue on which the Court of Appeals may have erred." He suggested that the lower court may still avoid a "miscarriage of justice" by keeping Day's case on its docket until after Lawrence is decided, "but it would be better practice for us to do so ourselves." Scalia's dissent Scalia, joined by Breyer and Clarence Thomas, objected that the Court was disregarding the clear provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), which required the forfeiture of affirmative defenses when they are not raised. Because that ordinary forfeiture rule would be entirely consistent with the Habeas Rules and statutes, it should apply to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) statute of limitations. Scalia asserted that it is instead "the Court's unwarranted expansion of the timeliness rule enacted by Congress that is inconsistent with the statute, the Habeas Rules, the Civil Rules, and traditional practice." The FRCP govern in habeas corpus proceedings to the extent that those rules are not inconsistent with federal