State courts and federal constitutionality

[Angel of Death]

Can a state court rule that part of the state constitution is unconstitutional on a federal level? Has it actually ever happened?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Given the Federal supremacy clause it certainly could, tho since most, and maybe all, State constitutions have bills of rights at least as expansive and often more expansive than the Federal Bill of Rights, the types of issues that would most likely lead to a Federal issue typically could be handled by reference to the State constitution. I'll leave it to the posters who actually are lawyers to dredge up any actual examples.

[bedstuy]

Do you mean something like a gay marriage case (before the Oberfell case) in a state court in a state that had a gay marriage ban?

I think the State Court has to treat the US Constitution as controlling over the State Constitution.  But, that sort of case wouldn't usually be in a state court, right?  If the crux of the case is Federal law, wouldn't it probably be in Federal Court?

[SteveRogers]

Do you mean something like a gay marriage case (before the Oberfell case) in a state court in a state that had a gay marriage ban?

I think the State Court has to treat the US Constitution as controlling over the State Constitution.  But, that sort of case wouldn't usually be in a state court, right?  If the crux of the case is Federal law, wouldn't it probably be in Federal Court?

I think a couple state high courts ruled after Windsor that the U.S. Constitution required marriage equality and thus struck down their state's statutory gay marriage ban, but I don't know that any actually struck down provisions of their state constitutions on that basis. Actually, an Arkansas court did, but the decision was appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court which dragged its feet until SCOTUS made it a moot point.

Yeah, if you're trying to get part of a state constitution struck down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution, you're almost certainly better off bringing your suit in federal court.

[Angel of Death]

Found an answer to my own question in the form of Silverman v. Campbell, in which the South Carolina Supreme Court voided the parts of the state constitution that bar atheists from public office.

[MarkD]

Do you mean something like a gay marriage case (before the Oberfell case) in a state court in a state that had a gay marriage ban?

I think the State Court has to treat the US Constitution as controlling over the State Constitution.  But, that sort of case wouldn't usually be in a state court, right?  If the crux of the case is Federal law, wouldn't it probably be in Federal Court?

The case of Romer v. Evans was decided by the state courts of Colorado that a brand, new provision of the CO state constitution was violating the U.S. Constitution. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court heard that case too, in 1996, and arrived at the same conclusion as the state courts, but the U.S. Supreme Court had the option to not hear the case at all, and I've read that the judges in the Colorado state courts were very surprised that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear arguments for that case. (Source: "The Constitutional Underclass; Gays, Lesbians, and the Failure of Class-Based Equal Protection," by Evan Gerstmann, published in 1999.)