Instruct: Classify the given review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: Legal terror.

Of all the totalitarian institutions of Nazi Germany, the National Socialist People's Court occupies a special place.Set up specifically to try cases of treason against the State (or National Socialism, which amounted to the same thing), these kangaroo courts meted out over 12,000 death sentences for civilians accused of everything from actual sabotage to joke-telling and listening to the BBC. The mandate was total, the methods ruthless, and not even the rare acquittal meant freedom - the Gestapo waited outside to take the unfortunate victim to a concentration camp anyhow.This sorry record of legalistic lynching is well told here with useful appendices, notes, sources, and index, and by the way - the guilty jurists were not prosecuted, but smoothly and quietly resumed their careers after the war.(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)