We apply those principles here. Given the divers possibilities that attend this situation, we are uncertain what procedural course the state trial court would take if asked to rule on the competence claim. That uncertainty dooms the procedural default defense. Id. at 213. Of course, our double-barreled conclusion that the Commonwealth waived its nonexhaustion defense and that it cannot mount a successful procedural default defense does not compel us to adjudicate the competence claim on the merits. A federal court may choose, in its sound discretion, to reject a state’s waiver of either nonexhaustion or procedural default. See Granberry, 481 U.S. at 134-35, 107 S.Ct. 1671; Earhart v. Johnson, 132 F.3d 1062, 1065 (5th Cir.1998); cf. Oakes v. United States, 400 F.3d 92, 97 (1st Cir.2005) (<HOLDING>). In exercising this discretion, concerns of
holding in a federal prisoners habeas case under 28 usc  2255 that the district court may raise the question of procedural default even if that defense was waived by the government holding that the state may waive the affirmative defense of procedural default by failing to assert it holding that we cannot avoid ruling on a claim a petitioner has procedurally defaulted if the government has waived the procedural default defense for that claim holding that the federal habeas corpus court could reach the merits of a due process claim even though there was no contemporaneous objection in state court trial where the state habeas corpus court reached the merits rather than rely on the procedural default defense holding that a federal court may excuse a state habeas petitioners procedural default if the petitioner can show cause for the failure to raise the claim and prejudice resulting from such failure