Bill Von Poyck is on death row. He's waiting to hear if his last appeal will be granted. He's 48, and has been on death row for 16 years. He's written a memoir, Checkered Past, in which he writes of his squandered life.

Bill Van Poyck, a muscular, good-looking man with a mind that Florida criminal defense attorneys call ''brilliant,'' was raised in the well-to-do South Miami neighborhood of Pinecrest. In 1988, Van Poyck, now 48, was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to death -- not for killing anyone but for shooting at police from a speeding getaway car, after his friend, Frank Valdes, shot and killed Fred Griffis, a state prison guard in West Palm Beach. Now, Valdes is dead, killed by Florida prison guards, and Van Poyck is near the end of the line -- hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will hear his appeal.

At the end of the day, what does Van Poyck have to say about his life?

``I've squandered away my entire life. . . . I could have spent my life doing good and helping others. And yet I chose this. . . . How did I lose the good I once had? Slowly day by day. What do I have to show for my life at the end of the day? Nothing.''

Van Poyck gives all proceeds from the book -- about 150 copies have sold for $14.50 each -- to the prison ministry of Bernie DeCastro, who lives in Ocala and runs a 60-bed halfway house for convicts just out of prison. ''If you don't reach these guys and support them right away, they're likely to go back,'' DeCastro said.