Salvagni Stepping Down

After a decade of being the face of the Gallatin County Treatment Court program, District Court Judge Mike Salvagni will hand off that role to a colleague and pursue another official role in the court system.

As a former prosecutor, Salvagni said he started out as a skeptic of the treatment court, an alternative sentencing program for drug abusers. But after seeing the positive effects the program has on participants, he turned his thinking around and embraced the idea. Since then, he has been a leading proponent of the program, as well as the judge at the helm of the case load.

“I feel honored and actually humbled that I had the opportunity to be there when it began, despite my skepticism,” he said. “I had just become a new judge after being a prosecutor for 14 years. But from what I had seen people do, I did a 180-degree turnaround as far as what the program offers people.”