Oh, So That's Why a Utah Supreme Court Judge Resigned
You know the axiom: Perception is reality in
politics. Whether something is based on fact or fiction, if people think
you’re corrupt or if your overall image looks bad, it could be your
downfall. For Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen, the lesson was
learned the hard way, as she resigned from the bench following
accusations of an improper relationship with an attorney who was
involved in this case that led to a pro-Democrat congressional map
getting approved
Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen announces her resignation from the court Per Utah News Dispatch
Hagen voted in favor of the new Utah map that gave Democrats an extra seat
She faced allegations she had a relationship with an attorney involved in the Redistricting case pic.twitter.com/2uPLgzXyky
Utah News Dispatch: Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen announces her resignation from the court.
Hagen
faced allegations she had a relationship with an attorney involved in a
case about redistricting, which led to Utah getting a new congressional
map. pic.twitter.com/aFQI3Uw8Lf
— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) May 8, 2026
Under
intense pressure from Republican leaders, including Gov. Spencer Cox,
Justice Diana Hagen resigned from the Utah Supreme Court on Friday.
Cox,
along with House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate President J. Stuart
Adams announced an investigation last month into allegations that Hagen
had an improper relationship with an attorney with a case before the
high court — accusations that the Judicial Conduct Commission dismissed
as “misleading.”
No details of how the investigation would be conducted had been announced.
But
amid the cloud of the investigation — and the Utah Republican Party
actively campaigning for Utahns to vote her off the bench in November’s
retention election — Hagen submitted her resignation, “effective
immediately,” to Cox, the governor said in a news release Friday.
In
her resignation letter, Hagen wrote that she recognizes public service
requires sacrifice and officials are held to a higher standard and
“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.”
So
the Judge that authored the opinion forcing Utah to redraw their
Congressional map (which added an absurd Democrat seat) just resigned
after her ex-husband alleged she was having an affair with the
plaintiffs attorney in the redistricting case that she presided over…. https://t.co/WA284lSQSn
I mean, you could’ve done that, lady, if you weren’t sleeping around…allegedly.
Backstory:
a local judge, Dianna Gibson, ordered new maps to be drawn after
nullifying one created by the Republican legislature. The same judge
then approved another map
proposed by the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for
Ethical Government, which the legislature appealed, claiming that Judge
Gibson exceeded her authority. The Utah Supreme Court rejected
the appeal in February, allowing this map to be used in the 2026
midterms. And now-former Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen voted in
favor.
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