Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen stepped down Friday, effective immediately, as state Republican leaders prepared an independent investigation into allegations she had an improper relationship with David Reymann, the attorney who argued a landmark redistricting case before her court.
Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed the resignation in a brief statement. Just The News reported that the governor's office said: "Today, Gov. Cox received a letter of resignation from Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen. The resignation is effective immediately." The statement added that "the governor appreciates Justice Hagen's years of service to the state of Utah."
Hagen's departure lands at the intersection of two stories that matter to every Utah voter: a Supreme Court decision that overrode the state legislature's congressional maps, and an allegation that the justice who wrote the opinion may have had a personal conflict she failed to disclose in time.
The backstory begins in 2021, when Utah's legislature adopted a new congressional map. A coalition of plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters of Utah, challenged the map. Reymann represented the League. The case eventually reached the Utah Supreme Court, where Hagen wrote the opinion.
In 2024, the court nullified the legislature's efforts to downgrade and set aside a citizen-approved proposition that called for an independent redistricting commission. The legislature had also attempted to amend the state constitution to grant lawmakers the power to repeal the proposition. The court blocked those moves. A lower-court judge, identified in reports only as Gibson, later ruled that the state's 2021 congressional map had to be redrawn.
For Republican lawmakers who had drawn the maps and defended them in court, the ruling was a significant defeat. The question of whether the justice who authored the opinion had an undisclosed personal connection to opposing counsel makes the defeat far harder to accept.
The allegation came to light in December 2025, when Hagen's ex-husband reportedly filed a complaint through an attorney with Utah's Judicial Conduct Commission. The complaint alleged an improper relationship between Hagen and Reymann, the same attorney who had argued the redistricting case before the court.
The JCC conducted a preliminary investigation. The Daily Caller reported that the commission's decision described the allegations as "speculative, overstated, and misleading" and said the complaint had "very little credibility." The JCC chose not to pursue the matter further, as the New York Post noted.
That might have been the end of it, except Utah's top Republican leaders were not satisfied. In April, Gov. Cox, Republican House Speaker Mike Schultz, and Republican Senate President J. Stuart Adams jointly announced that there would be an independent investigation into the allegation. The decision to go beyond the JCC's finding signaled that the state's elected leaders believed the matter warranted more scrutiny than the judicial commission had provided.
As we previously reported, that independent probe raised the stakes considerably for Hagen and for the court itself.
Hagen denied wrongdoing. The Utah Supreme Court said in a statement that Hagen's last involvement in the redistricting case was in October 2024. The court added that she had recused herself from the case "after she reconnected with a number of old friends in the spring of 2025." The court also stated: "Her ex-husband's allegations postdate her involvement in League of Women Voters."
In an April statement, Hagen said directly: "My last involvement in the redistricting case was October 2024." She also said she had reported herself to the JCC and submitted a sworn statement.
But the timeline raises more questions than it answers. If Hagen "reconnected" with Reymann, whom the court described only as one of "a number of old friends", in the spring of 2025, that was roughly six months after her last involvement in the redistricting case. The court's framing implies no overlap. Yet Hagen's ex-husband evidently believed otherwise, and the state's Republican leadership found the JCC's dismissal insufficient.
On Friday, Hagen made her decision. In her resignation letter, shared by Salt Lake Tribune journalist Robert Gehrke, she wrote:
"It is with deep sadness that I tender my immediate resignation as a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court."
She continued: "I would love nothing more than to continue serving the people of Utah as a Supreme Court justice, but I cannot do so without sacrificing the privacy and well-being of those I care about and the effective functioning and independence of Utah's judiciary."
Hagen also addressed the personal cost, writing that her "family and friends did not choose public life." She added: "They do not deserve to have intensely personal details surrounding the painful dissolution of my thirty-year marriage subjected to public scrutiny."
As Breitbart reported, Hagen also wrote: "I do this with profound love and respect for my colleagues on the Court."
Hagen's departure gives Gov. Cox the opportunity to appoint a replacement to the state's highest court. In a state where Republicans hold the governorship and commanding legislative majorities, that appointment could shift the court's balance on cases where the judiciary has clashed with elected lawmakers, redistricting chief among them.
The broader issue here extends well beyond one justice's personal life. The redistricting case was one of the most consequential rulings in recent Utah history. The court overrode the legislature's maps and blocked constitutional amendments the legislature had pursued. Hagen wrote the opinion. If the justice who authored that ruling had any undisclosed personal connection to opposing counsel, even one that began after her last formal involvement in the case, it corrodes public confidence in the entire proceeding.
Hagen insists the timeline clears her. The JCC agreed. But the resignation itself tells a different story. Innocent people do not usually walk away from lifetime appointments to spare themselves an investigation they say would vindicate them.
The questions surrounding judicial impartiality and political trust in the courts are not unique to Utah. Across the country, debates over whether judicial disagreements reflect law or politics continue to shape how Americans view the bench.
Several facts remain unclear. The exact nature and timeline of Hagen's relationship with Reymann has not been established by any completed investigation. The independent probe announced by Cox, Schultz, and Adams had not yet concluded when Hagen resigned. Whether that investigation will continue, and whether its findings will be made public, is unknown.
Reymann himself has not been quoted in available reporting on the matter. His perspective on the allegations and on Hagen's resignation remains absent from the public record.
The specific case name and docket number for the redistricting litigation have not been cited in the reports examined here. Gibson, the lower-court judge who ordered the maps redrawn, is identified only by last name. These gaps make it harder for the public to track the full paper trail.
And the JCC's decision to dismiss the complaint as "speculative, overstated, and misleading" sits uneasily alongside the fact that three of the state's most powerful Republican officials, the governor, the House Speaker, and the Senate president, felt compelled to launch their own investigation. Either the JCC moved too quickly, or the political leaders overreacted. The public deserves to know which.
Controversies over judicial legitimacy and political accountability have become a recurring feature of American public life. Utah's episode is a case study in why.
Fox News reported that Hagen framed her departure as a sacrifice for her family and for the judiciary's independence. That framing deserves scrutiny. A justice who participated in one of the most politically significant rulings in her state's recent history, and who later faced credible enough allegations to prompt an investigation by the governor and legislative leaders, does not get to define the terms of her own exit without challenge.
Utah's Republican legislature drew congressional maps. Voters approved a proposition to create an independent redistricting process. The legislature tried to override that proposition. The Supreme Court blocked the legislature. Hagen wrote the opinion. The attorney on the other side of that case is now alleged to have had a personal relationship with Hagen. The JCC dismissed the complaint. The governor and legislative leaders disagreed. Hagen resigned.
That sequence does not prove misconduct. But it does not inspire confidence, either.
When judges who make the biggest calls turn out to have the murkiest entanglements, the losers in those cases have every right to ask whether the fix was in, and the public has every right to demand a full accounting, not a quiet resignation letter.
