  It is a (common/criminal law) procedure to ban witnesses from the court room... Once they have testified they can remain in the court room.    except, the martin parents will also most likely be witnesses in this case....in fact, they are 100% assured to be. tracy made some statements, and he WAS the parent responsible for trayvon at the time, so he's definitely going to be a witness. other than that, they're going to take the stand to convince the jury trayvon was a well mannered angel and cry to make the jury feel sorry for them.     so, in actuality, the martin parents ARE 'witnesses' because they will eventually be called to the witness stand. this is traditionally called a character witness.    here's the kicker....the law only allows for family members who will NOT ever take the witness stand, to sit in at trial, even if they're the victims family. so the interpretation of the law was not followed to the letter. obviously no one in that court room wants to tell the innocent black victim family that they can't be there, so it's not even considered. just more exceptions for blacks.    pulling crump out of the trial was just to lash back. obviously, him being at the trial shouldn't be a problem (no more than zimmermans parents), because 1) he can look it up online 2) he can just ask the martins to inform him of what went on in there.....and this I think, is going to come back to bite him in the behind later....because when they get him on the witness stand and ask the right questions, they will be able to know for a CERTAINTY that he got information about what happened when he wasn't supposed to be given any information about the proceedings he was barred from. he won't even see it coming either.    but yeah, if they wanted to play hard ball and kick zimmermans family out (a move to keep the jury from seeing both families, and only the martins grieving), then crump had to go to, even though sending him out made no difference.    it's clear they did it as a move to keep the jury from seeing zimmermans family. they want the jury to see ONLY the martins, I expect the prosecution will try to hold off the interviews of zimmermans family until near the end of trial. but that's just more reason for O'mara to get them on the witness stand as soon as possible so they can then be allowed to sit in on the trial.    I think the jury is going to notice the inequality in this too.