I don't know that I'm defending so much as giving the whole story. People can make whatever they want out of it.

All my characters are a little different, but generally speaking if I kill someone, I'll leave them alone for a while unless they want to fight again. If you're pretty much ready to fight again (which you probably are because I typically corpseguard if I can and don't loot a ton) and you clearly want to fight again, I'm going to treat you like an adult and come back at you for real.

I think one way of being a jerk would be to repeatedly in a short time mow down the same person who had no real chance to beat you and who didn't want to fight you, but (to me) a different way of being a jerk would be to be dismissive of an opponent who did think they had a shot and wanted to take it.

Not everyone will agree with that, and that's okay, too.