[10] At the same time there is a stenographic record dated by June 14, 1940 of Vyacheslav Molotov talking to Juozas Urbšys where he said something similar: "...first of all they must be arrested and brought before the court, and the [criminal code] articles will be found" ("...прежде всего нужно их арестовать и отдать под суд, а статьи найдутся.").
[10][11] 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.
[12] Another similar Russian proverb is "была бы спина, найдется и вина", "if there was a back [to flog], there would be guilt".
[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").
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.