extenuating

"The question was were there any extenuating or mitigating circumstances."

When faced with choices between keeping their own and going outside, they always choose to keep their own unless there are some extenuating or unreasonable circumstances involved.

An aggravating circumstance is a kind of attendant circumstance and the opposite of an extenuating or mitigating circumstance, which decreases guilt.

It was here that Wentworth was interrupted, and the house decided "that he should be presently committed to the serjeant's ward as prisoner, and so remaining should be examined upon his said speech for the extenuating of his fault therein".

Despite their victory at Tarapacá, the demoralized Allied army led by General Juan Buendia left the entire Peruvian department under Chilean control by retreating to Arica in an extenuating and perilous march, losing almost 2,000 men in this long voyage.

"When my attorney, Mr. Corva, asked me if I would like to make a swom statement in extenuation or mitigation on my own behalf, I told him I could think of no extenuating or mitigating circumstances that I could swear to."

That's precisely what happens in EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES (Delacorte, $15.95), Mr. Valin's eighth Harry Stoner novel and his most successful attempt to examine a crime as it offends and threatens Midwestern moral codes.