Political scandals are nothing new. But this is different.
And now a massive Supreme Court scandal is raising eyebrows across the nation.
A Justice, A Redistricting Lawyer, And A Conflict That Wouldn’t Go Away
Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen resigned effective immediately on Friday, bringing to a close one of the most politically tangled judicial controversies in the state’s recent history — though the questions it raised about the integrity of the court’s redistricting decisions are unlikely to go away with her.
Hagen submitted her resignation letter to Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, who confirmed it was effective at once and thanked her for her years of service. In the letter, Hagen maintained that she had upheld her oath and fulfilled her ethical obligations throughout her nine years on the Utah appeals and supreme courts. She gave a different reason for leaving.
“My family and friends did not choose public life,” she wrote. “They do not deserve to have intensely personal details surrounding the painful dissolution of my thirty-year marriage subjected to public scrutiny.”
“It is with deep sadness that I tender my immediate resignation as a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court,” Hagen wrote. “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.”
The resignation came roughly a month after Cox, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, and Senate President J. Stuart Adams announced they would launch an independent investigation into allegations that Hagen had engaged in an improper relationship with David Reymann — an attorney who represented progressive voting rights groups in Utah’s high-profile redistricting case.
The Complaint, The Recusal, And The Redistricting Connection
The original complaint was filed with the state’s Judicial Conduct Commission in December 2025 by attorney Michael Worley, acting on information from Hagen’s ex-husband, Tobin Hagen. The ex-husband alleged that Diana Hagen had exchanged “suggestive” text messages with Reymann and that the relationship predated or coincided with her involvement in the redistricting litigation — a case in which Reymann argued on behalf of plaintiffs who successfully challenged the Republican-drawn congressional map.
Hagen denied an improper relationship, saying she had reconnected with Reymann as part of a group of old friends during the spring of 2025 as her marriage deteriorated, and that her last substantive involvement in the redistricting case was in October 2024. She voluntarily recused herself from all cases involving Reymann in May 2025.
The Judicial Conduct Commission conducted a preliminary investigation and dismissed the complaint, finding the allegations “speculative, overstated, and misleading” with “very little credibility.” But Cox and the state’s Republican legislative leaders were not satisfied with how the commission handled the matter and pushed for an additional, independent probe. With that investigation moving forward — and potentially heading toward the kind of high-profile inquiry that consumed Utah politics during the John Swallow pay-for-play investigation in 2012 — Hagen chose to step down.
House Speaker Schultz and Senate President Adams said Friday that with Hagen’s resignation, they consider the matter “related to Justice Hagen concluded” and will not pursue further investigation.
Why The Political Stakes Were So High
What makes this story more than a routine judicial ethics matter is the case at the center of it. Hagen was a key vote in the redistricting litigation that resulted in Utah being required to redraw its congressional map — a change that benefited Democrats and affected congressional representation in a state where Republicans hold a commanding majority. Reymann, the attorney with whom she allegedly had an improper relationship, represented the League of Women Voters in that very case and publicly celebrated the ruling as a “watershed moment.”
State Sen. Todd Weiler said after the allegations surfaced that Hagen and Reymann’s friendship was well-known in Utah’s legal community and that Hagen had not attempted to conceal it at social gatherings. That characterization, combined with Hagen’s own admission that she later recused herself because of the relationship, raises legitimate questions about why she did not recuse herself earlier — when the redistricting case was still active and Reymann was still arguing before her.
Those questions now have no formal institutional venue in which to be resolved, since the investigation has been closed with the resignation. The Judicial Conduct Commission has signaled it will examine how confidential records from its earlier investigation became public. Whether the full story of what happened — and what, if any, effect the relationship had on case outcomes — ever comes to light remains to be seen.
