The county judge's ruling saved Bruce and Rainee Osman from eviction and persuaded the King County Housing Authority to reinstate the Osman's Section 8 voucher Ñ federal assistance the couple relies on to pay rent. The decision also enables the Osmans to keep custody of their 6-year-old daughter Chandler, who lived with her grandmother the first three years of her life while Bruce and Rainee were homeless and selling Real Change.

'The judge agreed the Osmans were qualifying patients, that the marijuana was used in such a way that it was not displayed to the general public, and that the amount was within the legal 60 days' supply,' says Eric Dunn, the Osman's attorney.

Dunn, who works for the Northwest Justice Project, represented the Osmans in King County Superior Court on Wednesday June 1 in an eviction trial because their apartment managers at the Alderbrook Apartments in Kent wanted them out after marijuana was discovered in their car.

A day after the Osmans failed a King County Housing Authority inspection because they refused to let an inspector view the room in which they grew the marijuana, they covered their 15 plants with translucent plastic bags and moved them into their 1994 Chevy Lumina. Shawn Campbell, the maintenance supervisor of the apartment complex, said in his testimony that he saw the covered plants in the Osman's car on Mar. 9 and immediately reported his discovery to the building manager, who then called the Kent police.

The police responded, handcuffing and reading the Osmans their Miranda Rights while searching their car and home for illegal drugs or paraphernalia. The Osmans were not arrested, however, because their plants weren't illegal. They both have a state-approved doctor's recommendation to use marijuana to help relieve the pains from active Hepatitis C, a disabling disease both Bruce, 43, and Rainee, 41, have. Rainee also uses marijuana to alleviate pain from stomach ulcers and migraine headaches.

'Medicinal marijuana provides us with the relief from our symptoms and allows us to take care of our daughter,' Bruce says. 'It gives us an enormous quality of life.'

The county prosecutor did not charge the Osmans with a crime. Yet the apartment manager, Hannah J. Rudnick, 36, gave the Osmans a three-day notice to vacate the premises and remove all their belongings. In her testimony on June 1, Rudnick said she understood that she could be charged with a Class C felony if the management allowed tenants to have or use illegal drugs on the property Ñ a matter she said she took seriously.

According to court documents of the trial, the management issued the eviction notice because possessing and consuming illegal drugs in rental properties is legally a nuisance. Rainee Osman says the three-day notice labeled them a nuisance, but she found the charge bewildering, because Bruce and she have only had company a couple of times since they've lived there.

According to Bruce, the management has been a recurring problem at Alderbrook.

'We've had five to six different managers in just the three years we've lived there,' Bruce says. 'We're just not able to build any trust with our managers.'

Even though the Osmans didn't get evicted, there was still a possibility they could lose their Section 8 voucher, part of a federally funded program the King County Housing Authority uses to ensure the Osmans can afford an apartment despite their disabilities. According to court documents, Section 8 pays $661 of the Osman's $948 rent. A hearing to decide whether or not the Osmans would keep their Section 8 funding was delayed until there was a judgment made in the trial.

A day after the judge issued her order, Dunn says he received a phone call and a fax from the housing authority, informing him there would be no hearing. He also said the housing authority would reinstate the Osman's Section 8 funding immediately.

'The decision is perfectly reasonable and makes a lot of sense,' Dunn says.

While the Osmans don't have to return to the street, they will have to give up the use of medicinal marijuana since the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the federal government can persecute sick patients who use home-grown pot, even when a doctor has permitted it.

That means the Osmans have to quit using medicinal marijuana if they want to retain their Section 8 funds, says Dunn.

'The Supreme Court ruling has us really bummed, because the feds can go after anyone they want,' Rainee says. 'We can't even think of having it in our home and we don't want to use it in our car and drive around. If we can't use it in our home, we're not going to use it.'

'It's like we have the right but we can't exercise it,' Bruce says.

Now the Osmans say they are going to have to move and will start selling Real Change newspapers again to get the money they need to do so. Even though they won the eviction trial, they no longer feel the Alderbrook Apartments are a safe place for them to live because of the animosity they feel coming from the management.

'It's not going to be safe for us to live here,' Bruce says.

And despite the local victories in Washington, the Supreme Court's decision ultimately means the Osmans lost.

'They accomplished what they wanted us to do,' Bruce says.