Commonwealth v. Clay

The defendant was arrested on an arrest warrant and brought to the Cambridge police station. After being booked, the defendant was taken to the police station cell block, which was reached through a locked steel door and which contained twenty-eight individual jail cells, fourteen of which were used by the Cambridge police to hold prisoners pending their initial court appearances. The defendant was placed in a jail cell within the cell block. The cell door was shut and locked.

During a routine cell block check later that night, the duty officer discovered that the defendant was not in his…