[ThrowawayR2]

Look at it from their perspective: some people left a bunch of nasty messes that they will eventually have to spend time and effort to clean up without providing any good explanation of why the messes were there. Naturally, they assume Hanlon's Razor applies and they are venting about it.

The most you should do is explain what the reasons were for the bad code at the time, if you know them, and also explain why it can't be fixed right now, if there are any good reasons for it. There is nothing that you can say to defend bad code itself; it is, by definition, bad. Doing so will only give the rest of the team the wrong impression about you.

[brianaluv]

I'm not defending poor quality code. I'm looking for a way to avoid someone being insulted because they've written bad code. That's all. Do you ridicule or insult your current colleagues because they have written bad code? If you don't, why would you do it for the people who were on the project before you?