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.

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge:
In February 1975, Special Agent Van Patten of the United States Customs Service was called by a local law enforcement officer who informed Van Patten that there were firearms swapmeets held on certain Saturdays in Santa Ana, California. The agents received further information that some of the weapons purchased in these swapmeets were being illegally exported to Mexico. On August 16, 1975, Van Patten and other customs agents went to a swap-meet to observe potential violations of the Neutrality Act. Agents at the swapmeet observed the appellant and a codefendant purchasing rifles, pistols, shotguns and ammunition. During these transactions the purchasers spoke only Spanish.
At 8:35 a. m. the appellant and codefendant left the swapmeet, placed the weapons in a camper truck and drove the camper to a house in Santa Ana. The agents followed the truck on various errands during the day and kept it under observation at night. The weapons were not removed from it.
At 5:25 a. m. the appellant and codefendant entered the camper and drove it onto the Newport freeway. The agents attempted to follow but lost the appellant’s truck in the traffic. At 6:00 a. m., the agents decided that they could not find the vehicle and notice was sent to the agents at the San Ysidro border station to intercept the vehicle if it attempted to leave the United States. At 7:15 a. m., the vehicle was stopped by government agents on a four lane highway to Mexico at a point three hundred feet north of the border. There were no more regular offramps on the freeway before the border but there were two areas used to turn vehicles around.
Agent Quintel stopped the vehicle at the border, identified himself, and asked the appellant what he was taking into Mexico. The appellant responded that he had a load of pipe that he was taking to Mexico. The agent then asked the appellant and codefendant to step down from the vehicle. A patdown search was made and the vehicle was driven about 25 feet off the road. A search of the vehicle uncovered various firearms and ammunition.
Appellant raises two allegations of error. He argues that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction since there is no evidence to prove one of the essential elements of the crime. The case was tried by stipulation on a statement of facts made by the government and the testimony of witnesses at a hearing on a motion to suppress the weapons found in the truck. Appellant argues that there is no evidence in this record that he either failed to register as an exporter of weapons or that he failed to obtain an export license for this shipment. We find adequate evidence in the record to support a determination that the appellant did not have a license to export these firearms. In order to obtain a license to export certain firearms, an application must be sent to the Department of State and approved. It is then filed with the District Director of Customs at the designated port of exit. 22 C.F.R. §§ 123.52-53. The appellant could not have secured a license prior to the purchase of the weapons on August 16, 1975 since the weapons have to be specifically identified on the license application. We think that the minimal period of lapse between the acquisition of the weapons and the attempt to export and the fact that the appellant was under observation for all but an hour and fifty minute period of this time between 5:25 a. m. and 7:15 a. m. are adequate circumstantial evidence to prove that they did not obtain a license to export these guns. (We cannot imagine the State Department being open in Southern California before breakfast to issue firearm permits.) Further, what better evidence could there be that there was no permit than that Casillas-Munoz told the customs agent falsely that he was carrying a load of pipe. Isn’t this as good evidence as something belched out of a computer which forms the basis for someone certifying with red ribbon that no permit has been found?
We also hold that there was no error in the trial court’s failure to grant the motion to suppress the weapons found in the search of the camper. Probable cause is required to search a vehicle leaving the country. United States v. Gonzalez-Rodriguez, 513 F.2d 928 (9th Cir. 1975). The break in surveillance does not destroy the existence of probable cause to believe the weapons were in the car. The continuous observation from purchase until 5:25 a. m. meant that at the time the agents lost contact they had probable cause to believe the weapons were still in the camper. In the one hour and fifty minute unobserved period, the appellant and codefendant travelled one hundred miles. This time is consistent with a straight trip with no stops. Thus, the agents still had probable cause to believe that the weapons were in the truck and there had been no stop to unload them. The agents had reason to believe that the appellant and codefendant were taking the weapons to Mexico and not going down to turn around in one of the two turnoffs before the border since the appellant himself stated that he was going to Mexico. The search could be conducted with probable cause in the absence of a warrant due to the exigent circumstances created by the situation of a mobile vehicle on the road only three hundred feet from an international border. See United States v. Gonzalez-Rodriguez, supra, at 932. (Duniway, C. J., concurring).
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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