Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen resigned effective immediately on May 8, 2026, walking away from the bench she held for nine years after allegations surfaced that she had a relationship with the lead attorney in one of the state's most politically charged cases, the fight over Utah's congressional maps.
Hagen submitted her resignation in a letter addressed to Gov. Spencer Cox. The departure came nearly a month after the allegations first became public and triggered overlapping investigations by state leaders and the Judicial Conduct Commission.
The justice's exit now hands Cox an appointment that could reshape the ideological balance of Utah's highest court, a fact not lost on Republicans who control every lever of state government in Salt Lake City.
At the center of the controversy is David Reymann, the former lead attorney for the League of Women Voters in Utah's redistricting battle. Reymann had argued that the congressional maps drawn by Republican legislators were illegal. Hagen, who sat on the five-member court reviewing that very dispute, allegedly carried on an affair with him.
Hagen previously denied a conflict of interest and said her last involvement in the redistricting case was in October 2024. She voluntarily recused herself from all cases involving Reymann in May 2025. The court's September 15, 2025, opinion in the redistricting matter reflected that recusal.
But the timeline raises hard questions. If the relationship predated the recusal, and the allegations suggest it did, then Hagen may have participated in deliberations on a case where the lead opposing counsel was someone with whom she had a personal entanglement. That is the kind of conflict that corrodes public trust in the judiciary at its foundation.
In her letter to Cox, Hagen struck a tone of regret without admitting wrongdoing. She wrote:
"It is with deep sadness that I tender my immediate resignation as a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court. I do this with profound love and respect for my colleagues on the Court, who are not only brilliant jurists but also dedicated, hard-working public servants. I sincerely regret the disruption my sudden departure will cause the Court and the parties who come before it."
She also defended her record:
"For the last three decades, I have worked for earn a reputation for professionalism, fairness, and integrity. Throughout my career as a prosecutor and over the last nine years on the bench, I have faithfully upheld my oath to the constitution and the ethical obligations that govern our profession."
The New York Post reported that Hagen said the public exposure of her personal life, including the dissolution of her 30-year marriage, was taking a toll on her family and friends. She wrote that she would have loved to continue serving but could not do so "without sacrificing the privacy and well-being of those I care about and the effective functioning and independence of Utah's judiciary."
That last phrase is worth pausing on. When a sitting justice says her continued presence threatens the "effective functioning and independence" of the court, the resignation is not really voluntary in any meaningful sense. It is an acknowledgment that the situation had become untenable, not just personally, but institutionally.
The pressure on Hagen came from multiple fronts. In April, Cox joined Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate President J. Stuart Adams in announcing an investigation into the allegations. That three-branch show of force, the governor and the leaders of both legislative chambers acting in concert, signaled that Republican leaders viewed the matter as a serious breach, not a private indiscretion.
Separately, the Judicial Conduct Commission opened an independent investigation after a complaint was filed. However, a preliminary review by the commission reportedly chose not to pursue the complaint further, even as Hagen had already recused herself from cases involving Reymann. The Washington Examiner reported that GOP leaders said they would pursue potential reforms to the Judicial Conduct Commission in the wake of the controversy, a sign that some Republicans believe the commission's response was insufficient.
The gap between the commission's apparent reluctance and the political leadership's more aggressive posture tells its own story. When elected officials feel they must step in because the judiciary's own self-policing body won't act decisively, the system has a credibility problem that extends well beyond one justice's personal life.
High-profile government departures under pressure are hardly new in American politics, but the particulars here, a state supreme court justice, an active redistricting lawsuit, an attorney on the opposing side, make this resignation unusually damaging to public confidence in the courts.
Hagen's departure gives Gov. Cox the power to appoint her replacement. Just The News noted that the appointment could alter the ideological makeup of the Utah Supreme Court, a significant development in a state where the court's redistricting rulings have already clashed with the Republican legislature's preferences.
Cox's office confirmed the resignation with a brief statement: "Today, Gov. Cox received a letter of resignation from Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen. The resignation is effective immediately."
For conservatives who have watched state courts increasingly insert themselves into redistricting disputes, often siding with progressive advocacy groups against duly elected legislatures, the stakes of this appointment are not abstract. The redistricting case at the heart of this scandal involved the League of Women Voters challenging maps drawn by the Republican majority. Reymann, the attorney Hagen allegedly had a relationship with, was the one making that challenge.
Whether Hagen's participation in any phase of the case materially affected its outcome remains an open question. But the appearance of impropriety alone is enough to taint whatever the court decided. Litigants and voters deserve to know that the judges ruling on their political representation are not compromised by undisclosed personal relationships with the lawyers arguing before them.
The broader fight over courts intervening in election-related disputes continues to intensify at both the state and federal levels. Cox's pick for Hagen's seat will matter, not just for Utah, but as a signal of whether Republican governors will use their appointment power to install jurists who respect legislative authority on redistricting.
Several facts remain unclear. The exact nature and timeline of the alleged relationship between Hagen and Reymann have not been publicly established. Hagen denied a conflict of interest but never addressed the underlying allegations in detail. The specific complaint that triggered the Judicial Conduct Commission's investigation has not been disclosed, nor has the commission explained its decision not to move forward.
It is also unclear whether the redistricting case itself could face any legal challenge on the basis of Hagen's involvement before her recusal. If she participated in deliberations or votes while the relationship was ongoing, parties to the case would have legitimate grounds to question the integrity of those proceedings.
The political implications of judicial vacancies and who fills them are always significant, but they carry extra weight when the vacancy itself arises from alleged misconduct rather than routine retirement.
Cox and legislative leaders Schultz and Adams have signaled they want reforms to the Judicial Conduct Commission. Whether those reforms amount to real structural change or a round of press conferences remains to be seen.
Resignations under pressure, whether from federal officials or state judges, always leave a trail of unanswered questions. In this case, the most important one is straightforward: Did a sitting justice's undisclosed relationship with an attorney compromise the outcome of a case that determined how millions of Utahns would be represented in Congress?
Hagen says she upheld her oath. The people of Utah deserve more than her word for it.