Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen stepped down from the bench effective immediately, ending a career in public service she said spanned twenty-six years. Her resignation came as investigators probed allegations that she carried on a relationship with attorney David Reymann, a lawyer who represented progressive voting rights groups in a major redistricting lawsuit that came before her court.
Hagen sent her resignation letter to Gov. Spencer Cox. A spokesperson for Utah's Administrative Office of the Courts confirmed the departure was immediate, as first reported by the New York Post. Cox will now name her replacement, a decision that could shift the ideological balance of the state's highest court.
The conflict-of-interest questions at the center of this story are not trivial. Reymann was not some peripheral figure in Utah legal circles. He was involved in the redistricting litigation that challenged a Republican-friendly congressional map, a map that preserved four red seats. A justice who may have had a personal relationship with one side's attorney while that case was active raises the kind of question that corrodes public trust in the judiciary.
The trouble began when an attorney for Hagen's husband submitted a complaint to Chief Justice Matthew Durrant and the Judicial Conduct Commission, Fox News reported, citing local outlet KSL. The complaint alleged inappropriate text messages between Hagen and Reymann.
Both Hagen and Reymann previously denied the allegations. In April, the Utah Supreme Court issued a statement on Hagen's behalf, saying she had taken "prompt, prudent, and transparent steps" in response to her ex-husband's claims.
But those steps came in stages, and only after outside pressure mounted. Hagen herself said her last involvement in the redistricting case was October 2024. She did not recuse herself from all cases involving Reymann until May 2025, seven months later. Her recusal was reflected in the court's September 15, 2025, opinion in League of Women Voters.
That timeline matters. If the relationship predated the recusal, Hagen participated in litigation where one party's attorney was allegedly more than a professional acquaintance. If it began after her last involvement, the optics are still damaging, but the legal exposure is different. The gap between October 2024 and May 2025 remains unexplained.
The Judicial Conduct Commission, described on its own website as an independent body comprising state lawmakers, judges, and members of the public, conducted a preliminary investigation based on the complaint. It then chose not to pursue the matter further, KSL reported as cited by Fox News.
That decision drew criticism. The Washington Examiner reported that Republican state leaders faulted the commission's handling of earlier complaints as lacking transparency. When the body charged with policing judicial ethics declines to act, and the justice resigns anyway, the public is left to wonder what the investigation found and why the commission walked away.
The pattern is familiar. Misconduct allegations against powerful officials often follow a similar arc: complaint, denial, institutional review that goes nowhere, then a sudden departure that forecloses further accountability.
Fox News Digital obtained Hagen's resignation letter, and its language was careful. She framed her departure not as an admission but as a sacrifice forced by circumstances beyond her control.
"As a public servant for twenty-six years, I am keenly aware that public service requires sacrifice. I have willingly accepted those sacrifices for the privilege of holding a position of public trust, where I could do my part to uphold the rule of law and protect the constitutional rights of every Utahn."
She acknowledged the higher standard applied to public officials, then pivoted to the personal toll on her family.
"But my family and friends did not choose public life. They do not deserve to have intensely personal details surrounding the painful dissolution of my thirty-year marriage subjected to public scrutiny."
That framing deserves scrutiny. Hagen is right that family members did not choose public life. But the question before the public was never about her marriage. It was about whether a sitting justice had a relationship with a lawyer actively litigating before her court, and whether that relationship compromised a case with statewide political consequences.
Hagen also wrote that she could not continue serving "without sacrificing the privacy and well-being of those I care about and the effective functioning and independence of Utah's judiciary." Breitbart reported additional language from the letter, in which Hagen wrote: "It is with deep sadness that I tender my immediate resignation as a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court." She added: "I do this with profound love and respect for my colleagues on the Court."
The redistricting case was no minor dispute. Utah's Republican-drawn congressional map maintained four red seats. Progressive voting rights groups challenged it, and Reymann worked on their behalf. The political stakes were high enough that any appearance of impropriety, let alone an alleged affair between a justice and one side's attorney, threatens the legitimacy of the outcome.
Redistricting fights have become flashpoints across the country. In Virginia, Republicans have waged their own courtroom battles over redistricting processes, and the integrity of judges in those cases is the foundation on which public acceptance rests.
Just The News reported that the attorney was connected to a 2024 case in which Hagen struck down a constitutional amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to repeal ballot initiatives. That detail deepens the conflict-of-interest concern. If Hagen ruled against the legislature's power in a case where her alleged romantic partner represented the opposing side, the integrity of that ruling is now an open question, regardless of what the Judicial Conduct Commission concluded.
Gov. Cox now has the authority to name Hagen's replacement. The Washington Examiner noted that Hagen served less than four years on the court. Her departure gives the governor a chance to shape the bench, an opportunity that carries weight given the court's role in redistricting, ballot-initiative disputes, and other politically charged matters.
Cox's office has not publicly commented on the resignation beyond confirming receipt of the letter. The broader fallout from Hagen's departure will depend on whether the governor moves quickly and whether the legislature revisits the Judicial Conduct Commission's decision to drop its inquiry.
Several questions remain unanswered. What exactly did the complaint allege beyond inappropriate text messages? When did the relationship begin relative to Hagen's participation in the redistricting case? Why did the Judicial Conduct Commission decline to pursue the matter, and did Hagen's resignation moot the investigation or was it already closed?
The public deserves answers. A state supreme court justice does not resign effective immediately, citing the "effective functioning and independence" of the judiciary, unless something has gone seriously wrong. The commission's refusal to pursue the case further does not resolve the matter, it simply means the institution designed to provide accountability chose not to.
When redistricting reshapes the political landscape, the judges who oversee those fights must be beyond reproach. Hagen's resignation is an implicit concession that she was not.
Judges hold their seats on the public's trust. When that trust breaks, a resignation letter, however carefully worded, is not accountability. It is an exit.