Does State Law Supersede Federal Law?

[Lathan]

No, federal law supersedes state laws. Federal law is superseded by the US Constitution.Not in all cases. State law is certainly superceded by the US Constitution (that is, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and no law by any body can contravene it). However, as the Constitution sets out a federal system of government, where certain areas of jurisdiction are reserved for the states, and others for the federal government, it is entirely possible for a state law and a federal law to be in conflict. This conflict is resolved by the U.S. Federal Judiciary system (ultimately, the Supreme Court of the United States [SCOTUS]), with one of three outcomes:SCOTUS can declare that the federal government has the right to regulate that particular area, in which case, the state law is subordinate to any federal law passed in that area.SCOTUS can declare that the federal government is exceeding its Constitutional mandate, and the area in question actually is reserved for regulation by the states, in which case, the federal law is declared null and void.Finally, SCOTUS can "split the difference", and decide that for certain circumstances, the state law is to be applied, and in other cases, federal law supercedes state law. This is common when the area covers both inter-state and intra-state activities - in this case, the federal law applies when the activity occurs between parties in different states, while the state law applies when all parties are inside the same state.Note that the federal system of the United States is quite unusual in modern governments - very, very few other countries have this particularly complex split of jurisdictional boundaries (Germany is perhaps one of the few). In the vast majority of countries, federal (i.e. national government) law always supercedes that of lower-level governments.