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. The saying is related specifically to the concept of the presumption of guilt.[5][6][7]: 179 [8]: 85