Garden Grove : Driver Is Convicted in Death of Motorcyclist

A Garden Grove man with a long record of drunk-driving arrests was convicted of manslaughter Thursday for an accident in which a motorcyclist was killed in Anaheim last November.

A Superior Court jury found Samuel Pickering, 65, guilty of vehicular manslaughter with ordinary negligence, which means he could get four years in prison at his June 5 sentencing.

The prosecution sought a conviction for manslaughter with gross negligence, which carries an eight-year prison term.

In February, another jury found Pickering guilty of two counts of felony drunk driving stemming from the Nov. 10, 1985, accident on Beach Boulevard in which Gregory Scott Sinclair, 25, was killed. The earlier jury was unable to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charges.

Sinclair was fatally injured when his motorcycle collided with a vehicle driven by Pickering, who police said was driving on the wrong side of the divided street. Pickering registered a blood-alcohol level of .32, more than three times the level at which a driver in California is considered legally drunk.

Pickering had been arrested seven times dating back to 1969 in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties on drunk-driving charges before the November accident, according to court records.

He was convicted twice, pleaded guilty to lesser charges four times and always paid fines. The seventh case is pending, court records indicate. Pickering has been in jail since the November accident.