If you are arrested for a crime in Philadelphia, you will likely face a criminal trial.

The criminal justice system can be confusing and stressful for just about anyone. This confusion and stress is only compounded if you are unfamiliar with the steps of the criminal justice process.

The purpose of a criminal trial is for a jury of your peers to examine the evidence against you and determine if you committed the crime. You are innocent until proven guilty, and the burden is on the prosecutor to convince the jury that you committed the crime. Here are five steps of a typical trial:

When a crime occurs in Philadelphia, police must determine who committed it so that the criminal can be prosecuted and brought to justice. But investigating a crime in Philadelphia can be very different from what you see on TV and in the movies.

Depending on whether the crime is in progress or has already been committed, officers may take very different approaches to tracking down the culprit.

Here's a brief overview of the basics of the criminal investigation process:

There are several classes of crimes in Pennsylvania including murders, felonies, misdemeanors, and summary offenses.

The penalties for murder are obviously the most serious and can include the death penalty. While a summary offense is the least severe, the penalties can also be serious. Within each classification of offense, there may also be sub-categories of offenses that carry varying penalties.

The different classes of offenses can be difficult to keep track of and may be confusing. Here is a general overview of the different types of offenses and their associated penalties:

A Pennsylvania conspiracy charge is one of the most common, yet least understood, criminal charges.

Generally, conspiracy is defined as one person planning with at least one other person to commit a crime. If someone is convicted of conspiracy, that person faces the same criminal penalties as the underlying crime.

For a conspiracy to be illegal, prosecutors have to prove that at least one person in the alleged conspiracy took some overt act to commit the crime.

You will sometimes hear of a minor being charged as an adult for certain crimes. But the rules for the transfer of juvenile cases to the criminal system may not always seem clear.

Here is an overview of the laws for when a juvenile can be charged as an adult in Pennsylvania:

You see lie detector tests used all the time in the movies. But just how realistic is this portrayal of polygraphs — especially under Pennsylvania law?

While some criminal suspects will publicly announce that they will take a lie detector test to prove their innocence, these boasts are largely empty. In addition, even if they undergo these tests, the results are dubious at best.

Still, law enforcement personnel will sometimes use lie detector tests. Here a look at how polygraphs are treated in Pennsylvania, as provided by the Pennsylvania Attorney General.

If you're selected for jury duty, you'll get instructions about what to do next. Still, there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about serving on a jury in Philadelphia.

To help clear some of the confusion, here are some frequently asked questions regarding jury service in Philadelphia:

You'll likely become a constitutional law expert if you are ever a criminal defendant.

As you may know, the Constitution contains our basic rights and freedoms. Many of these rights pertain to criminal suspects and their presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Here are five constitutional amendments every criminal defendant should know:

When you were a child, your parent probably told you not to talk to strangers.

Now that you are a parent, you will similarly have to provide your children some advice and tips on dealing with strangers.

Children encounter hundreds of strangers every day, whether it be at school, in the park, or anywhere else. So advising your children to completely ignore strangers is probably not practical.

Getting arrested for a crime and facing a Philadelphia criminal law trial is an extremely stressful event. That is why it is extremely important to familiarize yourself with the process of a criminal trial if your case is being heard in court.

The purpose of a trial is for a jury of your peers to examine the evidence against you and determine if you committed the crime. You are innocent until proven guilty, and the burden is on the prosecutor to convince the jury that you committed the crime.

Here are the six major stages of a criminal trial: