They have seen switchblades (verboten), tiny plastic bottles of booze (taboo), and once, a bag of weed (confiscated). They have spotted bottles of wine (not allowed) and sex toys (weird, but OK) floating around at the bottom of handbags.

Yet there are still things that catch officers off-guard as they work the screening stations at the front doors of the Vista courthouse. It only took Community Service Officer Josh Ritter a half-second Wednesday to come up with the most unusual item that has passed through the X-ray machine he mans.

"A murder victim," he said flatly.

Wha …?

Yes, a murder victim.

Turns out that earlier this year, a victim's mother had more than a written statement in her hands when she attended the sentencing for her son's killer. She brought her son's ashes.

And, just like nearly all items brought to the courthouse, the container had to be placed on the X-ray conveyor belt and go through the security screening process.

Blobs and shapes

Court officials contract with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department to provide security -- at a cost of $126,000 per weekday. The deputies serve as weapons screeners, courtroom bailiffs and more.

Usually, two or three screeners are at the front door of each of the three entrances to the Vista courthouse. In June, more than 67,000 people walked through security screening there.

That number does not include the attorneys, cops and courthouse employees who can walk in a special entrance, unchecked, as long as they flash their attorney bar card or badges. Everybody else, even the UPS courier, goes through security screening.

The screeners are there to keep weapons, actual or potential, out of the building.

They get good, really good, at identifying what to the rest of the world looks like nothing more than blobs and shapes on the computer screen. They can even tell whether the most fashionable leather-looking bag is really a vinyl knock-off, and can distinguish a Honda key from a Toyota key 10 feet away from the computer screen.

On Wednesday, Ritter pointed to a blue circle on his screen as a woman's bag rode the conveyor belt.

"See this? It's a tin of mints," Ritter said. He slid his finger along the screen to a mound of orange. "And these are nuts. Probably almonds."

His observation drew a dropped jaw from the owner of the bag.

"That's amazing," Carlsbad resident Kathy McGraw Johnston said. "Those are mints. And I do have almonds in there."

Ritter explained that the orange splotches on the screen tend to be organic items, like food, and the green shapes are plastics, like cell phone casings. Blue is metal -- and the deeper the blue, the heavier the metal, he said.

So when a large dark circle appeared on his screen about three months ago, he knew this was a piece of jewelry worth some serious dough.

He peeked over and saw it was a Super Bowl championship ring from the 1984 victory for the then-Los Angeles Raiders.

Ritter said he has "learned to keep my inner fan locked up." So although he chatted up the ring's owner, Ritter didn't ask him his name.

What people bring

The screeners said people will try to bring in rolls of ruined carpet or dented bumpers as exhibits in small claims trials. Some of which, such as the metal bumper, are turned away as potentially dangerous. One self-represented litigant wanted to haul in an industrial-sized sewing machine.

Inside of an hour Wednesday morning, about 500 people patted down their pockets, plopped wallets and keys and backpacks onto the conveyor belt, and probably became self-conscious as they marched through the metal detector.

The men and women manning the machines -- the X-ray with a conveyor belt akin to airport security or the metal detector through which courthouse visitors walk -- stay busy.

Men forced to remove their belts -- metal buckles set off the alarms -- shrug their way through the machinery, hitching up their pants. A few women pat along the outside of their bra, making sure they don't have anything metal like a lighter tucked inside. (Oh, and don't worry, ladies. Underwire is generally OK.)

The rarely found illegal items are confiscated. The rest of the taboo stuff is handed back to the visitor with directions to leave it in the car.

Most folks at the courthouse doors don't want to be there. But jury duty or the need to file for divorce or answer a small claims suit or one of life's other challenges have forced them to enter the building.

The screeners know this, so they try to lighten the mood. A dropped plastic tray might elicit a quip from Deputy Wayne Carver about being careful with the fine china.

Serious business

They know, though, their jobs are serious. They prevent not only guns and knives from slipping into the building, but also anything that could be fashioned into a weapon.

"We are the first line of defense for the court," Deputy Bob Galloway said.

So don't think Galloway is rude when he answers questions or gives directions without looking at the courthouse visitor who is posing the query. His eyes, like those of his colleagues, are focused on the people walking in the doors or passing through the metal detector.

The courthouse in Vista has three security entrances, two in the main building and one in the traffic annex. The latter entrance draws 1,300 people on the busier days, Community Service Office Lynnette Felkins said Thursday as she stood at her post and scanned items.

She said that, last year, her heart nearly stopped when she spotted a gun on her computer screen. Turned out it was a replica, a child's toy made of metal. But it looked so real that Felkins ordered its irritated owner to trek back to the parking lot with her children and leave it in the car to stave off potential panic among other courthouse visitors.

"I find that a lot of women don't even know what is in their purses," Felkins said.

She's among the screeners who have spotted a bedroom pleasure-item on the screen. By the way, depending on what they are made of, such items tend to be allowed into the building.

Embarrassing, for sure. Appropriate? Not at all. But generally, if they can't be used as a weapon, they are legal.

Call staff writer Teri Figueroa at 760-740-5442.