Give somebody hell

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

The [following] advice [was] given by an old [North Carolina] lawyer to a young one. 

The old lawyer said, “If the evidence is against you, talk about the law. If the law is against you, talk about the evidence.”

The young lawyer asked, “But what do you do when both the law and the evidence are against you?”

“In that case,” replied the old lawyer, “give somebody hell. That’ll distract the judge and the jury from the weakness of your case.”