Death Penalty Opponents March in Orange : Rally: About 30 people gather at park and march downtown to protest the execution scheduled for Tuesday at San Quentin.

ORANGE —  A capital punishment protest took the form of a celebration of life Saturday when about 30 people gathered to oppose the impending execution of Oakland drifter David Mason.

In an oddly situated event at Hart Park, the protest rally with reggae band accompaniment took place only steps away from a separate reunion party for people who share the same last name of Rodriguez.

The protesters, representing Death Penalty Focus of Orange County, later marched 2 1/2 miles to the downtown traffic circle to continue their demonstration against the execution scheduled for 12:01 Tuesday at San Quentin.

“We are all concerned with crime, and sympathize with crime victims, but we don’t feel the death penalty is the answer,” said Lynn Loschin, 24, of Huntington Beach. “It only perpetuates the violence in our society.”

Mason was convicted in the 1980 robbery and murder of four Oakland people, and for the 1982 murder of a jail inmate.

Although Mason has said the death sentence was an appropriate punishment for his actions, he filed an 11th-hour appeal claiming that he did not receive a fair trial.

The California Supreme Court rejected that charge Friday.

At Saturday’s rally, Sister Louise Ann Micek, 50, of St. Joseph Sisters of Orange read from the Planetary Pilgrim, a collection of prayers by Edward Hayes.

“I am your caged brother/sister/friend. . . . I have done shameful things that will haunt me the rest of my life. But I have been a prisoner since my youth. I have lived in many prisons--a broken home, a narrow neighborhood, the prison of my mind,” Micek read. “In here, my brother, sister, friend, know that the sun of hope never shines, no light at the end of my tunnel, escape proof my permanent prison.”

Micek joined the march to the traffic circle and back to the park. Along the way, several passersby honked their car horns and waved to the marchers who carried signs demanding: “Give the death penalty its last supper” and “Abolish the death penalty now.”

For Micek, it was the second march of the day. Before the death penalty protest, she and about 60 others from the Sisters of Orange organization marched to raise funds for their prison ministry program.

In fact, the sisters hired the band Isouljahs to play for their fund-raiser and to entertain at the rally.

“We were all for staying,” said band manager Michael Miller, 22. “The death penalty is not the answer. The answer is forgiveness.”

Death Penalty Focus plans to hold a candlelight vigil Monday at the Santa Ana Civic Center from 8 p.m. until “there is a stay announced to let David Mason live or until he is executed,” Loschin said.