Where an offender offers to plead guilty at the first reasonable opportunity and the prosecution rejects that offer, the offender's failure to subsequently renew the offer before it is ultimately accepted does not deprive the plea of its character as an early plea entitled to full mitigatory weight. A sentencing court is obliged as a matter of justice to take dead time into account as a mitigating circumstance, and may not decline to do so on the basis of a perceived tactical choice by the offender not to apply to have bail revoked.
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