Then came the famous Berner case. This was in 1884. Berner had committed a deliberate murder of an unusually appalling nature and with robbery as the motive, and there was great excitement about it. Campbell became his counsel and, in a trial which held the attention of the community while it lasted, he succeeded in getting the man off for manslaughter when the unanimous opinion was that he should have been hanged. Nobody could see how an honest jury could have rendered any other verdict. There was intense indignation throughout the city and a meeting was called to denounce Campbell as an embracer of juries and a suborner of perjury.