Like the Jerome County policy, the Twin Falls memorandum is explicit in saying that civil asset cases should be of secondary priority. “A goal of any seizing agency investigation is the criminal prosecution and conviction of those in violation of Idaho Code,” the memorandum says.

But the Times-News reviewed a sampling of Jerome and Twin Falls county cases from the past half-decade and found several that illustrate critics’ arguments against forfeiture laws.

In 2010, a month after Saul Torres and Jasil Gomez lost $9,010 without being charged with a crime, a 15-year-old Colorado girl was arrested at the Greyhound bus station in Twin Falls on suspicion of drug possession. Police said the girl ran away from her Colorado home and rode the bus to Twin Falls to meet up with a 22-year-old man she’d met online. According to an affidavit, the girl had marijuana, illegal pills and $1,265 in her purse.

Police seized the cash and filed a civil forfeiture complaint against the money. The girl’s mother, who also lived in Colorado, answered the complaint and said her daughter had run away, taking her medical marijuana and cash without her knowledge. She said she was a disabled veteran and that forfeiture of the money would cause her undue hardship. She also accused the prosecutor’s office of not responding to her letters and phone calls.