Task: songer_appel1_7_2

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.
When coding the detailed nature of participants, use your personal knowledge about the participants, if you are completely confident of the accuracy of your knowledge, even if the specific information is not in the opinion. For example, if "IBM" is listed as the appellant it could be classified as "clearly national or international in scope" even if the opinion did not indicate the scope of the business. 

Your task concerns the first listed appellant. The nature of this litigant falls into the category "natural person (excludes persons named in their official capacity or who appear because of a role in a private organization)". Your task is to determine the gender of this litigant. Use names to classify the party's sex only if there is little ambiguity (e.g., the sex of "Chris" should be coded as "not ascertained").

STEPHENS, Chief Judge.
James Reese is confined in a California State Penitentiary after conviction of seven felonies as stated in his petition to me as follows: “Petitioner was convicted in the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco, (California) April 19, 1956, on seven counts; two counts of murder, one count of assault with intent to commit murder, three of burglary, and one count of rape. The Superior Court imposed the death penalty on each of the two murders.”
Petitioner is sentenced to be executed on the fourteenth day of February, 1958. He claims that he has exhausted his state remedies for relief and the record shows that he has unsuccessfully petitioned the United States District Court for relief through a proceeding for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus. The District Court refused to issue a certificate of probable cause, and the day before yesterday (February 11, 1958) petitioner filed the instant petition with me praying for me to issue the certificate and to grant him the right to appeal in forma pauperis.
His petition in the main is little or nothing more than assertions of error at his trial which could only be raised in his behalf on direct appeal. He also accuses his attorney of fraud and alleges that his attorney was not effective in his defense and that he has been prejudiced by an illegal search and seizure. There is nothing before me that would justify me in finding that the District Court abused its discretion in denying the petition for the issuance of the certificate of probable cause. And I find nothing which would justify me in issuing the certificate upon petitioner’s direct petition for such action.
I find no support for the claim that petitioner has not been accorded due process.
Of course, the objective of our legal criminal procedure is the ascertainment of guilt or innocence, and the safeguards to such objective known as “due process” must be observed. Yet the objective remains and should never change to a microscopic search for error upon a standard too strict to be understood or put in action only by technicians. It may be of some little significance and some, though small, comfort to those of us whose duty calls us to act in this regrettable business, that in petitioner’s long and carefully self-prepared petition, there is not to be found a claim of innocence in addition to his formal plea of not guilty.
The petitions for the issuance of a certificate of probable cause and for the privilege of prosecuting an appeal in forma pauperis are denied.

Question: This question concerns the first listed appellant. The nature of this litigant falls into the category "natural person (excludes persons named in their official capacity or who appear because of a role in a private organization)". What is the gender of this litigant?Use names to classify the party's sex only if there is little ambiguity.
A. not ascertained
B. male - indication in opinion (e.g., use of masculine pronoun)
C. male - assumed because of name
D. female - indication in opinion of gender
E. female - assumed because of name
Answer:

Answer: B