Robin Kittrell remains in diversion center, working on diploma

A request for the early release of a former Whitewater High School student who pled guilty last year to bringing guns to campus in his car has been denied.

In an order signed last week, Superior Court Judge Tommy R. Hankinson declined the request to reduce Robin Kittrell’s sentence of two years in a detention center as part of a 10-year probation sentence.

In his order, Hankinson noted that although Kittrell has earned his General Equivalency Diploma while at a detention center, he is still a few courses shy of earning his high school diploma.

“Although receiving a high school diploma was an alternative to receiving a GED, the Court prefers that the defendant complete the course requirements for his diploma prior to being considered for release from the detention center,” Hankinson wrote.

Hankinson noted that he had been assured by the director of Kittrell’s detention center that accommodations would be made to allow him to complete the high school diploma coursework.

Kittrell pled in November 2006 to six counts of possession of a weapon on school property, one count of possession of a concealed weapon and two counts of underage possession of a firearm. The items were found in his car on campus in August 2006 after they were searched by authorities on what was reported as an anonymous tip to school officials.

The school’s resource officer testified that Kittrell told him the two rifles and two handguns were in his car so he could help assist if the school were ever attacked in a Columbine-style incident. But Kittrell testified at his January 2007 sentencing hearing that he accidentally left the guns in the trunk of his car after putting them there for a trip he planned to take just before school started that was later cancelled.

Kittrell admitted that his parents didn’t know he had possession of the guns at the time. The four guns were unloaded and locked in a case in Kittrell’s car along with a switchblade knife and a ninja sword on the first day of school in 2006.

A detention center differs from a jail in that it is designed to house probationers and not persons sentenced to jail time. According to the Georgia Department of Corrections, detention centers “are highly structured, with regimented schedules that include supervised, unpaid work in surrounding communities and programming geared toward making them more successful in the community.”

Prior to his sentencing hearing, Kittrell spent two months in jail and then was on house arrest, wearing a monitoring bracelet to track his location.

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