Epilogue
You’d think that Eli’s sensational result in the case would have changed history. It did not.
The Hank Ellis case was settled out of court. Financial compensation of more than a million dollars was awarded to the man’s widow and family. It was among the first settlements with any big city in the nation for which compensation was paid to a victim for wrongful death by police. However, because there was never a criminal trial, the murder and its proof remain presumptive. And because the settlement was reached before the finding of the inquest could be entered in to the city’s official records, the coroner’s opinion that the decedent had died from heart failure from the stress of being taken into custody was never altered.
The two officers were placed on probationary desk duty for
