Dershowitz pithily illustrates the dilemma of the courts in deciding the swearing contest in his “rules” of the criminal justice system: […]

He was a Yankee and they say he would not hang a man who had been in the G.A.R.

Harsh words, though pertinent, uncouth appear: / None please the fancy, who offend the ear.

But are sailors […] without vices? No; but less often than with landsmen do their vices, so called, partake of crookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness than exuberance of vitality after long constraint; frank manifestations in accordance with natural law.