A St. Joseph man charged with resisting arrest for fleeing from Drug Strike Force officers was ordered to serve two years in prison.

Jay Bee Baskett, 29, was charged after a pursuit in which he passed several vehicles on a two-way street at high speed on March 10.  The pursuing officers said they called of the search when Baskett pulled out to pass two vehicles and nearly ran a motorist in oncoming traffic off the road.

Baskett pleaded guilty Thursday before Circuit Judge Daniel Kellogg, who ordered a two-year prison term with credit for time already served.

Baskett’s attorney Michelle Davidson raised some serious concerns about the warrant those officers were trying to serve.  The defendant was on probation in an unrelated 2013 drug case at the time of the pursuit.  Davidson examined Scott Adams with the Missouri Division of Probation and Parole about the earlier case, in which the DOC either misread or lost the documents, and mistakenly filed a warrant for a parole violation.  Baskett was on probation, not parole, but that didn’t stop authorities from taking him back into custody without a hearing.  Davidson told the judge her client had been imprisoned twice, for 526 days, without due process.

That other case actually came up for a probation violation hearing June 2 before Circuit Judge Patrick Robb, who ruled that the probation period had expired.

Lawyers in the case point out that an invalid warrant is no defense to the separate crime of resisting arrest.