Roadmap Project: Preparing Prosecutors to Hold Federal Officers Accountable
08.27.26 — When federal officers break the law, how can state prosecutors hold them accountable for criminal conduct? Since this past spring, a team of law students, led by Professor Emerita Deborah Ramirez, has been building the answer through the Roadmap Project, an initiative of the Criminal Justice Task Force at Northeastern Law’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR). The goal of the Roadmap Project is to help state prosecutors prepare to contest Supremacy Clause immunity — a long-standing doctrine that has governed whether federal officers can stand trial for state criminal charges, and to do so in where state prosecutors rarely find themselves: a federal district court.
To date, the Roadmap Project has trained eight district attorneys representing more than 10 million people across the country and recruited former federal agents ready to consult and testify against the agencies they once worked for, offering prosecutors an inside perspective on federal training and use-of-force practices. “This is a difficult fight, but far from impossible,” said Ramirez, founder and director of the Criminal Justice Task Force. “If district attorneys are prepared, they may be able to overcome immunity, and potentially even get their case remanded to state court for trial.”
Over the course of the project, the team has uncovered a number of doctrinal and practical hurdles presented by Supremacy Clause immunity and by federal officer removal. In a recent opinion piece, “Federal accountability for ICE has vanished. States must fill the void,” published in The Boston Globe, Ramirez and Max Reese, former research director of the Roadmap Project, argue that “if the federal government has chosen to shut the door on accountability, the states should open theirs. It is critical that state prosecutors form a strategy to ensure that there are full professional state investigations into all potential misconduct. Governors, attorneys general, local district attorneys and law enforcement must work together to build the institutional infrastructure to make criminal accountability a reality.”
About Northeastern University School of Law
The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law offers the longest-running, most extensive experience-based legal education program in the country. Northeastern provides its students with unparalleled practical legal work experiences through its signature Cooperative Legal Education Program. More than 1,000 employers worldwide in a wide range of legal, government, nonprofit and business organizations participate in the program. With a focus on social justice and innovation, Northeastern University School of Law blends theory and practice, providing students with a unique set of skills and experiences to successfully practice law.
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About the Center for Law, Equity and Race
The Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR) at Northeastern Law brings together pioneering faculty and programs to address the role of law in creating and perpetuating racial inequality. CLEAR serves as an interdisciplinary convening space for research, innovative pedagogy and community collaboration. At its core are two nationally recognized programs founded by CLEAR’s faculty: the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), founded by Professor Emerita Margaret Burnham, and the Criminal Justice Task Force (CJTF), founded by Professor Emerita Deborah Ramirez. Both initiatives are grounded in the intersection of law, history and racial justice. CLEAR’s portfolio also includes the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive, a groundbreaking repository that preserves and makes accessible the documented history of racial terror and its legal dimensions in America — an essential resource for scholars, advocates and communities seeking truth and accountability.