Guste's investigators soon indicated the probe would go beyond the public safety department, with at Mayor Allen and Utilities Commissioner Collins as well. D'Artois did not step down voluntarily but was forced to resign on August 6, 1976, when he was arrested for conspiracy to murder his former advertising specialist, Jim Leslie of Shreveport. He died of complications of heart surgery ten months later in June 1977 in San Antonio, Texas. The interest group, Blacks United for Lasting Leadership, Inc., an African-American civil rights organization in Shreveport, filed a class action lawsuit against the City of Shreveport to force an end to the commission form of government. In 1974, blacks constituted 32 percent of the Shreveport population, but no African American had served on the city council, which since 1910 had consisted of five commissioners, including the mayor. By the time of the 2010 U.S. Census forty years later, Shreveport was nearly 55 percent black in population. BULL alleged that the inherent at-large feature of the commission government operated unconstitutionally to dilute the votes of blacks. The United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana agreed and declared the commission government unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision was affirmed in March 1978 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. Shreveport hence switched to the mayor-council form of government with the fast-approaching 1978 elections, when Commissioner Don Hathaway ran a strong but losing race for mayor to then automobile dealer, William T. "Bill" Hanna, who made issue that he was an "outsider" to the troubles that had befallen City Hall, now called Government Plaza, during the preceding term of office. Utilities Commissioner Billy Guin was another unsuccessful candidate for mayor in the September 16 nonpartisan blanket primary, also known as the jungle primary. Days after his defeat for mayor, on November 21, 1978, Hathaway joined Mayor-elect Hanna, outgoing Mayor Allen, and outgoing Commissioner Guin for the dedication of a new Exhibition Hall on the riverfront, a structure later named in Allen's honor, now known as StageWorks of Louisiana. Hathaway soon rebounded politically upon his election on December 9, 1979 as the Caddo Parish sheriff and "ex officio" tax collector. The one-term incumbent, Harold Monroe Terry (1925-2016), did not seek reelection, and Hathaway defeated his fellow Democrat Jim Adger, an agri-businessman, in a runoff contest, 55.6 to 44.4 percent.