Task: songer_r_natpr

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 respondents in the case that fall into the category "natural persons". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

SIMONS, Senior Judge.
The appellant and Wilbur Slade were indicted charged with conspiring with one Bridges named in the indictment as a conspirator but not charged as a defendant, to violate Section 152, Title 18 U.S. C.A., the object of the conspiracy being to conceal and transfer property of a corporation adjudicated a bankrupt. The appellant and Slade were placed on trial before a jury. During the course of the trial, the defendant, Slade, without notice to or knowledge of the appellant, withdrew his plea of “not guilty” and entered a plea of “guilty”; whereupon, the trial proceeded against the appellant alone, with the result that the jury returned a verdict of “guilty” and he was given a substantial sentence. This appeal resulted.
At the conclusion of the evidence and shortly before the jury was to retire, the following colloquy took place between a juror and the Court:
“Juror: I would like to know if the fact that Mr. Slade pleaded guilty before this trial came into action, before we heard the testimony, does that have something to do with the guilt or guiltlessness of the defendant?
“Court: That is a fact that occurred in your presence. Mr. Slade did enter that plea here, withdrew a plea of not guilty — now, the fact that he is guilty doesn’t of itself indicate Mr. Trussell is guilty.
“Juror: That’s what I wanted to know.
“Court: He is charged in the indictment with being a party to the conspiracy with Trussell, and he pleads guilty. Yet it is incumbent upon the Government to prove Trussell’s guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. Whatever weight you give to the fact that Slade has plead guilty is a matter for you. He did do that in open court in the presence of the jury. He might be guilty of conspiring with Bridges.”
If the Court, in answer to the juror’s question, had contented himself with the response, that Slade had withdrawn his plea of “not guilty” and that the fact that he is guilty does not of itself indicate that Mr. Trussell is guilty, the claim of error, based upon the colloquy, would not here have been met. The Court, however, continued its response to the juror with the statement that: “Whatever weight you give to the fact that Slade has plead guilty is a matter for you. He did do that in open court in the presence of the jury. He might be guilty of conspiring with Bridges.”
While the act of one conspirator is admissible against others, if it is in furtherance of the criminal undertaking, all such responsibility ends when the conspiracy ends. Fiswick v. United States, 329 U.S. 211, 67 S.Ct. 224, 91 L.Ed. 196. This alleged conspiracy had ended with the return of the indictment and with it responsibility ended. The Court expressly left it to the jury to determine what weight should be given as against the appellant to Slade's plea of guilty. Slade was not a witness; was not under oath; and could not be cross-examined, and the change of plea was not in furtherance of the conspiracy. This was plain error, further compounded by the Court’s statement * * * that he might be guilty of conspiring with Bridges. Trussell was not in any sense responsible for Slade’s change of plea. Slade could speak only for himself, and not for Trussell. The cases in the Courts of Appeals are in accord: Babb v. United States, 5 Cir., 218 F.2d 538; United States v. Toner, 3 Cir., 173 F.2d 140; United States v. Hall, 2 Cir., 178 F.2d 853. The Toner case, supra, presents an almost identical situation as that in the present case.
The Government makes the additional argument that the appellant cannot now question the Court’s instruction since appellant made no timely objection but the Court, in criminal cases, has the inherent power to note errors in the record which seriously affect the substantial rights of a defendant. Smith v. United States, 6 Cir., 230 F.2d 935, 939; United States v. O’Connor, 2 Cir., 237 F.2d 466; United States v. Raub, 7 Cir., 177 F.2d 312. Error having been here noted, its prejudicial character is obvious. Other issues raised may not, upon retrial, appear.
The judgment is reversed and the case remanded to the District Court for a new trial in conformity herewith.

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

Answer: 0