Give me the man and I will give you the case against him
Soviet-era Polish saying / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Give me the man and I will give you the case against him"[1] (Polish: Dajcie mi człowieka, a paragraf się znajdzie; translated to English more literally as "give me the man; there'll be a paragraph[lower-alpha 1] for him",[2] Russian: Был бы человек, а статья найдется ("If there is a person, there will be an article [in the criminal code]"), also interpreted as "give me the man, and I will find the crime",[3] or "show me the man and I'll show you the crime"[4]) is a saying that was popularized in the Soviet Union and in Poland in the period of the People's Republic of Poland, attributed to the Stalinist-era Soviet jurist Andrey Vyshinsky,[2][5]: 200 [6] or the Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria.[3][4] It refers to the miscarriage of justice in the form of the abuse of power by the jurists, who can find the defendant guilty of "something" if they so desire.[5][6][7]: 179 [8]: 85