Task: songer_appnatpr

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
United States of America,
Plaintiff, Appellant
v
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendant, Appellee.
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendants, Cross-appellants
v
United States of America.
Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
of the Board
Plaintiff, Appellants,
v
United States of America,
Defendant, Appellee.
This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

PER CURIAM.
Upon appeal from an order denying a motion for the vacation or correction of a sentence, it appears that the appellant was convicted and sentenced for bank robbery under Title 12 U.S.C.A. Section 588b (a) and Section 588c. The indictment contained four counts charging the appellant with entering a bank with intent to commit a felony, stealing from the bank, putting the life of a bank officer in jeopardy by the use of a dangerous weapon and attempting to avoid apprehension by forcing a bank officer to accompany him without the consent of such officer.
Notwithstanding our numerous admonitions that sentences be specific both as to counts and as to the beginning and ending of the term of sentence, the district judge, now retired, imposed upon the appellant in respect to all of the counts of ihc indictment, a blanket sentence of 65 years, but added “25 years for kidnapping”, and the sentence was in such terms recorded by the clerk of the court in the short-hook. It is now settled that the statute dealing with the offense of bank robbery creates but a single offense with various degrees of aggravation permitting sentences of increasing severity. It is also clear that under the authority of Section 588c the court would have been empowered to impose a maximum penalty of 65 years because that section provides for a minimum and is silent as to the maximum of imprisonment that might, have been imposed. However, the observation that 25 years was for kidnapping imparts ambiguity to the sentence. On behalf of the appellant it is urged that having been sentenced to 25 years for kidnapping the court was without power to cumulate an additional 40 years under the first three counts of the indictment because they became merged with the fourth count. On behalf of the government it is contended that the court indicated an intention of sentencing the appellant to a term of 65 years but that 25 years were added to what the court had in mind because the defendant, was found guilty of the kidnapping, and the court so decided in overruling the motion for correction.
The latter argument is not persuasive because without the element of kidnapping the court could not have sentenced the defendant to a term of 40 years. More important, however, is the fact that the convict should know with certainty what his punishment is to be, and that a reviewing court should not be called upon to speculate as to what was in the mind of the sentencing judge at the time of the imposition of the penalty. It is imperative in maintaining respect for the judgments of courts that sentences in criminal cases should not be equivocal. This is more vital than the interests of a particular defendant in a criminal case.
The order of denial is reversed and the cause remanded to the district court for the correction of sentence by the imposition of a sentence upon the appellant of not more than 25 years.
It is so ordered.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.
Answer:

Answer: 1