There are eight stages to a criminal trial. Today, I will briefly lay out the sequence of a typical criminal trial. In future articles, I will delve deeper into each criminal trial stage. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Stage One: Trial Initiation

This is the first part of any criminal trial. By federal law, those accused of a crime must be brought to trial in a speedy fashion. On specific federal law pertaining to this stage is the Speedy Trial Act. The Speedy Trial Act was formulated in 1974. It requires that proceedings being within a specified period of time. The accused can’t simply get lost in jail while the government takes its time getting to the matter.