Give me the man and I will give you the case against him

"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^[a] 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}

Etymology

The saying is commonly attributed to the Stalinist-era Soviet jurist Andrey Vyshinsky^{[2][5]: 200 [6]} or the Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria.^{[3][4][9][8]: 85} Jarosław Grzegorz Pacuła briefly discussed the saying's origins, pointing to older similar sayings in English, such as 18th-century Scottish jurist Lord Braxfield's "Let them bring me prisoners, and I will find them law" and the Russian proverb "If there is a neck, there is a collar" (Была бы шея, а хомут найдётся; or Была бы голова, а петля найдется) that Vyshinsky might have known and paraphrased.^[10] A similar quote has also been attributed to 17th-century French statesman Cardinal Richelieu ("Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I will find something in them which will hang him").^{[8]: 85 [11][12]} A related American saying is "A prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich".^{[13]: 38 [14][15][16]: 36} Polish writer Henryk Pająk summarized the saying in four words: "person exists, [their] crime exists" ("jest czlowiek, jest przestępstwo").^[17]: 152

Meaning

In Poland the saying is associated with the criticism of the justice system under totalitarian (in particular, communist) regimes.^{[2][18][19]: 7 [7]: 179 [10]} The saying has been described as "one of the most popular, depressing and representative sayings about the general powerlessness of people faced with injust legal systems, characteristic to all countries governed by the communists".^[19]: 7

Such abuse of power, exemplified by this saying, has been explicitly discussed in the context of military justice in the Stalinist era in Poland (1948–1956), particularly with regard to the court's ability to determine the legal classifications of the defendant's actions, based on very vague and generic legal terminology. During that time, in several cases, the courts considered multiple competing classifications and often sided with the prosecution in defaulting to the one which would invoke the harshest punishments.^{[20]: 269–271}

The expression is widely used in Putin-era modern Russia to describe fabrication of criminal cases by police and judges.^[21]

See also

• Kangaroo court
• Show trial

Notes

1. The paragraph here refers to a particular part, demarked by the section sign of a legal text (statute or article), called a paragraph in Polish.^[2]: 200 This is why the title of the famous book Catch-22 was translated to Polish as Paragraf 22.^[2]: 200

References

1. Keeping, Janet (2006). "Where Law Does Not Rule: The Russian Oil and Gas Sector". International Journal. 62 (1): 69–80. doi:10.2307/40204246. ISSN 0020-7020. JSTOR 40204246.
2. Looby, Robert (31 March 2015). Censorship, Translation and English Language Fiction in People's Poland. Hotei Publishing. ISBN 978-90-04-29306-9.
3. Holmes, Stephen (18 March 1999). "Give me the man". London Review of Books. Vol. 21, no. 6. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
4. Henry, Michael (9 May 2018). "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime". The Oxford Eagle. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
5. Deleixhe, Thibault (2015). "Powieść historyczna pod czujnym okiem cenzora – analiza tekstów". Adeptus (in Polish) (6): 11–25. ISSN 2300-0783.
6. Dobrzycki, Jarosław (30 August 2022). ""Gazeta Polska" — pomiędzy tygodnikiem opinii a tabloidem" [Gazeta Polska between an opinion-forming weekly and a tabloid]. Rocznik Historii Prasy Polskiej (in Polish). 25 (2): 101–127. ISSN 2084-8552.
7. Bohun, Michał (2016). Drogi i bezdroża patosu moralnego : kilka uwag o etycznej tendencji filozofii rosyjskiej (in Polish). Kraków : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. ISBN 978-83-233-4105-5.
8. Schneier, Bruce (2 March 2015). Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-24482-3. In the 17th century, the French statesman Cardinal Richelieu famously said, "Show me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough therein to hang him." Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin's secret police in the old Soviet Union, declared, "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime." Both were saying the same thing: if you have enough data about someone, you can find sufficient evidence to find him guilty of something.
9. Martin, Kate (2008). "The New Domestic Surveillance Regime: Ineffective Counterterrorism That Threatens Civil Liberties and Constitutional Separation of Powers". Advance. 2: 51–62. (as purportedly observed by Stalin's KGB chief) "show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
10. Pacuła, Jarosław Grzegorz (2020). "Słownictwo tiuremno-łagrowe dotyczące denuncjacji (w kontekście rozważań o faktograficznej wartości historyzmów okresu sowieckiego)". Półrocznik Językoznawczy Tertium (in Polish). 5 (1): 1–17. doi:10.7592/Tertium2020.5.1.Pacula (inactive 7 February 2024). ISSN 2543-7844. S2CID 225037522.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of February 2024 (link)
11. Crespo, Sandra (2016). "Truth, Lies, and Videotapes: Embracing the Contraries of Mathematics Teaching". The Elementary School Journal. 117 (1): 101–118. doi:10.1086/687807. ISSN 0013-5984. S2CID 148289008.
12. Crowley, Michael; Johnstone, Michael (1 January 2014). "I remember Richelieu: Is anything secure anymore?". Australian Security and Intelligence Conference. doi:10.4225/75/57a833d7c833e.
13. Hirsch, James S. (2000). Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-618-08728-0.
14. Franken, Bob (18 June 2007). "Ham Sandwiches". The Hill. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
15. Peltz, Richard J. (2008). "Fifteen minutes of infamy: Privileged reporting and the problem of perpetual reputational harm". Ohio NUL Rev. 34: 717–754. As every law student learns, and the general public might not well understand, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. Thus the naming of an accused in an indictment does little to ensure that the journalist is getting the story right
16. Foley, Simon (2 September 2021). Understanding Media Propaganda in the 21st Century: Manufacturing Consent Revisited and Revised. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5275-7437-3. There's an old saying about the US grand jury system, that 'a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich' – the implication being you can make anyone look guilty for anything at any time.
17. Pająk, Henryk (2006). Dyktatura nietykalnych (in Polish). Wydawn. Retro. ISBN 978-83-87510-71-8.
18. Pańczyk, Katarzyna (29 October 2015). "Tożsamość kulturowa człowieka sowieckiego na podstawie "Budujemy Kanał" Witolda Olszewskiego" [Cultural identity of soviet person based on Witold Olszewski's "We are Building a Canal"]. Polylogue. Neophilological Studies (in Polish) (5): 79–94. doi:10.34858/polilog.5.2015.007. ISSN 2083-5485.
19. Musiał, Filip (2005). Polityka czy sprawiedliwość? : Wojskowy Sąd Rejonowy w Krakowie (1946-1955). Kraków: Societas Vistulana. ISBN 83-88385-53-4. OCLC 72805687.
20. Bokwa, Krzysztof; Magiera, Paweł; Pałosz, Radosław; Pokoj, Jakub (2020). Praktyka orzecznicza wojskowych sądów rejonowych w Katowicach i w Krakowie w sprawach politycznych w okresie stalinowskim (in Polish). Wydawnictwo Instytutu Wymiaru Sprawiedliwości. ISBN 978-83-66344-46-4.
21. Торочешникова, Марьяна (2 July 2019). "Статья найдется" [The article will be found]. Радио Свобода (in Russian). Retrieved 22 April 2024.