SIOUX FALLS - As Elijah Page waited to die somewhere behind the ominous stone face of the South Dakota Penitentiary on Wednesday evening, death-penalty opponents nearby made their last symbolic pleas for his life.

In an atmosphere of both protest and placid resignation, a small group of people waved signs such as "All Life is Sacred" and "Choose Life For Page." The response from passing motorists ranged from an occasional honk of support to more common signs of opposition - including obscene hand gestures or shouts of "eye for an eye!" or worse.

But other than an occasional traffic clog as someone slowed to read the protest signs or to yell, the protest caused little disruption. One anti-death-penalty demonstrator said the public didn't seem that interested in the impending execution.

"I think it's apathy. People don't seem to care," Sue Merritt of Sioux Falls said.

Merritt made a daily trip to different locations on busy Sioux Falls streets almost every day for the two weeks leading up to the execution, holding a sign and a lone protest against capital punishment. She said there was a consistent lack of response by most passers-by.

The protesters themselves were few in number Wednesday. For most of the day, only five or six people manned the anti-death-penalty spot on a grassy area between the prison parking lot and the street. By early evening, their numbers had grown to 30.

Death penalty supporters numbered seven or eight during the evening. They were situated in an area nearby set aside for death-penalty supporters.

Among them were Robyn Keating and her daughter, Emily Wendl, sitting near a sign that read, simply: "Justice." Keating said that was what brought her to the prison.

"We're here to see justice done for Chester Poage," she said.

Chester Allan Poage was the victim of the ghastly 2000 torture murder that put Page and accomplice Briley Piper on death row and sent Darrell Hoadley to prison for life. Page was the first person executed in 60 years in South Dakota, after giving up his appeals and saying he wanted to die. Piper continues to appeal his death sentence.

Andrine Stricherz, a Sioux Falls native who spent most of the three last decades away from the state working for the federal government, began the protest early in the day, holding a sign that read "Not In My Name."

Stricherz, a member of the South Dakota Peace & Justice Center and the Catholic group Pax Christi, said her 20 years in Texas - where executions are common - prior to returning to Sioux Falls last year intensified her opposition to capital punishment.

Stricherz said she is especially unhappy that Gov. Mike Rounds, a Catholic, contends that church policy leaves room for the death penalty in cases like this.

"What it says is it's only acceptable if there's no way to keep that person from harming other people," Stricherz said. "And if they can't do that, there's something wrong with the prison system."

Sitting nearby, Barb Kremer of Worthington, Minn., also a member of the Peace & Justice Center, was troubled both by the moral issues raised by capital punishment and the potential for Page to suffer during the lethal-injection process.

Kremer, a registered nurse who meets with inmates regularly as a volunteer in a prison ministry program, said the injection process is imperfect and could cause pain before it kills. Kremer said she noticed discomfort about the execution among some of the prisoners she met with Tuesday evening for prayer and discussion.

"I sensed they were a little more reluctant to talk," she said. "These guys are affected. I think it saddens them that he (Page) will never have the opportunity to know Jesus as they have. They really want him to have that."

Kremer said if Page were spending the rest of his life in prison, he could discover a spiritual life that could benefit other inmates and possibly help turn their lives around.

"Can you imagine the witness that he would give, and how these guys would respond to it?" she said. "This is where God does his greatest work, right here in prison."

Keating said people like Kremer were entitled to their opinions, adding that she believed the majority of people in Sioux Falls supported the execution.

"More people support it. But they don't have the time to come down here and show it," she said.

Page was scheduled to die last August, but Rounds stopped the process just hours before the set time, saying there was a serious conflict between state law and state policy on the drugs used in the lethal injection. The Legislature amended the law, and Rounds said Tuesday that he was satisfied.

Kremer said she planned to stay through the day and into the night, hoping against hope that Page's life would be spared, and praying for those involved.

"Right now, I pray for Gov. Rounds, and I pray for Elijah," she said.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or Kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com