How has the court treated the use of a metal detector in a jury trial?

To the extent the metal detector's use focused attention on the proceedings, it pointed to the nature of the case, not to defendant's character. (See People v. Miranda (1987) 44 Cal.3d 57, 114-115, 241 Cal.Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127.) The distinction is crucial. Nor did the magnetometer improperly highlight the nature of the case. The jurors already knew they were hearing a multiple murder trial and that "the defendant appearing before them did not arrive there by choice or happenstance." (Holbrook v. Flynn, supra, 475 U.S. 560, 567, 106 S.Ct. 1340, 89 L.Ed.2d 525.) Hence the magnetometer's presence did not objectionably dramatize the proceedings. The device was, in its neutrality, akin to that of, and indeed likely less dramatic than, the use of armed guards in the courtroom.