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.