Death Penalty Order Assailed : Justice: Criminal defense lawyers say U.S. Supreme Court’s directive to speed cases risks shortcuts on rights.

The state’s leading criminal defense lawyers organization charged Tuesday that the U.S. Supreme Court is goading a federal appeals court to facilitate swifter executions of Death Row inmates in the Western United States.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has become a very dark force in America,” said Philip H. Pennypacker of San Jose, president of the 3,000-member California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, reacting to an unusual order by the court Monday.

The court ordered a prompt resolution of appeals filed by Washington inmate Charles R. Campbell, who was sentenced to death in 1982 for murdering three women. His execution has been delayed several times, and there has been no action on his latest appeal, filed in March, 1989.

In its ruling, the high court also told the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, that “any further postponements” in the handling of death penalty cases “will be subject to a most rigorous scrutiny” by the Supreme Court.

The court’s order and the Criminal Justice group’s reaction to it are likely to add more fuel to the long-running controversy over the duration of death penalty appeals.

The California attorney general’s office on Monday issued a statement praising the Supreme Court’s action. “It certainly comes as no surprise to Atty. Gen. (Dan) Lungren that Washington state is experiencing some of the same frustrations that we’ve experienced in our pursuance of capital cases in the federal courts,” said Dave Puglia, Lungren’s spokesman.

Also responding to the high court ruling was J. Clifford Wallace, the 9th Circuit’s chief judge, who said Tuesday that the long delay in deciding Campbell’s appeal was an anomaly not likely to occur again.

He said that last year the 9th Circuit, which covers nine Western states, instituted new procedures to expedite the handling of death penalty appeals, which often run for several years. Wallace said the procedures attempt to follow recommendations made in September, 1989, by a special commission on death penalty appeals headed by former Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Wallace, who became the 9th Circuit’s chief judge last February, said he makes monthly checks on the progress of the death penalty appeals, 21 of which are now pending in the circuit.

If he discovers a problem, Wallace said, he urges the judges considering the case to expedite their work. Thus far, he said, the only significant problem he discovered was in the Campbell case.

Judge Alfred T. Goodwin of Pasadena, Wallace’s predecessor as the 9th Circuit’s chief judge, said “when I was chief judge I was aware that this case was dragging on and I spoke to the panel about it. They said they were working on it.”

However, another 9th Circuit judge, speaking anonymously, said he believes the new procedures would not have prevented the delay.

In 1985, both the Washington state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Campbell’s murder conviction and death sentence. During his trial, he did not deny escaping from a prison work-release facility and killing three women.

On three occasions, a Washington state court has set an execution date for Campbell, but each was stayed by federal judges.

In March, 1989, U.S. District Judge John Conogher in Seattle found there was a basis for further appeal. But he declined to stay Campbell’s execution, which was scheduled to occur just two days later.

Campbell filed an emergency request for a stay of execution with a 9th Circuit panel, which granted the postponement. No decision has been issued since then.

Washington state Atty. Gen. Kenneth O. Eikenberry has been attempting to get a final ruling. He said the 9th Circuit Court’s “purposeful inactivity bespeaks a studied indifference to, even contempt for, the legitimate interests of the state and a preference for lengthy, redundant legislation.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to remove the case from the 9th Circuit, which it has the power to do, but called for a “prompt resolution of the matter.” Seven of the court’s nine justices said they could not find “any plausible explanation or reason for the (9th Circuit) panel’s delay in resolving” the case.

However, Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens dissented. They said the panel had provided “a completely satisfactory explanation” for its July, 1990, decision to defer ruling on Campbell’s petition.

“This is not a situation in which the 9th Circuit has unduly delayed decision of a case, but rather a situation in which that court has chosen to avoid repetitive and piecemeal litigation,” Blackmun and Stevens wrote.

Cynthia Holcomb Hall of Pasadena, one of the three judges handling the Campbell case, declined to comment Tuesday. The Times was unable to reach the other two judges--Cecil F. Poole of San Francisco and Procter Hug Jr. of Reno.

Another 9th Circuit Court judge, Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles, said he would not comment on what had occurred in the Campbell case or the Supreme Court’s order. However, he said, “the most important thing still is that the court continue to examine death penalty cases with the utmost care and ensure that we don’t shortcut constitutional rights.”