About

Criminal defence lawyer Jason Wuttunee practices trial and appellate litigation in all facets of the criminal defence process, as well as select civil litigation matters. He represents individuals or corporate entities at all levels of Court in Alberta and handles all Criminal Code matters and drug offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Before starting his own defence practice, Mr. Wuttunee worked as a Crown Prosecutor with Alberta Justice for eleven years, where he conducted trial litigation in predominantly major crimes cases and prosecuted the spectrum of criminal offences. He was regularly assigned to homicides and other high public-interest matters — such as serious sexual assaults, attempted murders, firearms cases, home-invasion robberies, and aggravated assaults — and to cases involving extraordinary police investigations, such as wiretaps and undercover operations. He has substantial jury trial experience in numerous multi-week matters involving complex legal and evidentiary issues.

Mr. Wuttunee was Appellate Counsel with Alberta Justice from 2014 to 2016, during which time he argued numerous appeals before the Alberta Court of Appeal and was co-counsel at the Supreme Court of Canada on a precedent-setting case involving the law of circumstantial evidence and the Charter implications of using General Warrants for computer searches.

Mr. Wuttunee regularly advised police with respect to charging decisions, drafting judicial authorizations for searches and seizures, and other matters involving criminal and constitutional law and evidence. He has taught advocacy seminars for junior prosecutors and guest lectured to second- and third-year law students at the University of Calgary on Charter remedies in criminal trials.

Before joining the Crown’s office, Mr. Wuttunee practiced civil litigation and employment law with a top-tier national law firm in Calgary.

In the not-for-profit sector, Mr. Wuttunee co-founded and was a director of a successful non-profit society aimed at providing support and services for Indigenous youth living in Calgary. In 2009, he attended the Vatican with the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and a delegation of residential school survivors for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. The delegation’s mandate was to seek reconciliation and an apology for harms inflicted during the Indian residential schools’ legacy in Canada.

Mr. Wuttunee graduated with an undergraduate degree from the University of Calgary and a law degree from the University of Toronto. He was called to the Alberta Bar in 2006.