During movement programming, there is a point in time at which the movement system is committed to executing an action with certain parameters, even though new information may render this action obsolete. For saccades programmed to a visual target this period is termed the dead time. Using a double-step paradigm we examined potential variability in the dead time with variations in 1) overall saccade latency, and 2) spatio-temporal configuration of two sequential targets. In experiment 1 we varied overall saccade latency by manipulating the presence or absence of a central fixation point. Despite a large and robust gap effect, decreasing the saccade latency in this way did not alter the dead time. In experiment 2 we varied the separation between the two targets. The dead time increased with separation up to a point, and then levelled off. A stochastic accumulator model of the oculomotor decision mechanism accounts comprehensively for our findings. The model predicts a gap effect through changes in baseline activity, without producing variations in the dead time. Variations in dead time with separation between the two target locations are a natural consequence of the population coding assumption in the model.