Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen resigns. She is the same justice who helped give Democrats an additional congressional seat for the midterms. She reportedly had an affair with an attorney involved in that redistricting case.
Under intense pressure from Republican leaders, including Gov. Spencer Cox, Justice Diana Hagen resigned from the Utah Supreme Court on Friday.
Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen has resigned following a controversy over an alleged inappropriate relationship. However, the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission conducted an investigation and dismissed the complaint.
The complaint against Hagen was submitted to Chief Justice Matthew Durrant and the Judicial Conduct Commission in December 2025, and it alleged that Hagen engaged in an extramarital affair with attorney David Reyman, an attorney for the plaintiffs in Utah’s high-profile redistricting case. The complaint argued that she could not be impartial in the case because of the alleged affair.
Hagen denied the adultery allegations since her marriage was breaking up. She also stated that her last involvement in the redistricting case was in October 2024. She said she rekindled a friendship with Reymann after her 30-year marriage failed, and she voluntarily recused herself from the redistricting case and other cases in which he was involved.
In her resignation letter, Hagen wrote that she recognizes public service requires sacrifice and that officials are held to a higher standard, with “a greater degree of public scrutiny and diminished privacy.”
“But 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.”
“I would love nothing more than to continue serving the people of Utah as a Supreme Court Justice,” she wrote, “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.”
Governor Spencer Cox, Senate President J. Stuart Adams, Speaker of the House, Mike Schultz, and Chief Justice Matthew Durant issued a joint statement, writing, “The judicial, executive, and legislative branches are committed to working together on potential reforms to the Judicial Conduct Commission—ensuring it upholds the highest standards of accountability and earns the confidence of the people of Utah.”
Speaker Schultz and President Adams also provided a joint statement of their own, writing, “We appreciate Justice Hagen’s resignation and her willingness to step aside in the best interest of the institution. We consider this matter related to Justice Hagen concluded and will not conduct any further investigations related to these specific allegations.”