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 "the federal government, its agencies, and officials". 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.

Opinion:
The PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES ex rel. Roy SCHUSTER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ross E. HEROLD, M.D., Director of Dannemora State Hospital, Dannemora, New York, Respondent-Appellee.
No. 715, Docket 33283.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Argued April 13, 1971.
Decided April 26, 1971.
Frederick C. Kneip, New York City, for petitioner-appellant.
Arlene R. Silverman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel A. Hirshowitz, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen., for respondent-appellee.
Before WATERMAN, SMITH and KAUFMAN, Circuit Judges.
WATERMAN, Circuit Judge:
This case is a sequel to United States ex rel. Schuster v. Herold, 410 F.2d 1071 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 847, 90 S.Ct. 81, 24 L.Ed.2d 96 (1969), in which we held that the State of New York should afford Schuster a full hearing on the question of his sanity. The disturbing chronicle of Schuster's conviction, imprisonment, and subsequent transfer to Dannemora State Hospital is fully narrated there, and we mention here only those events which have since transpired. At the time of oral argument in the present appeal Schuster’s sanity hearing had not yet been concluded, primarily because the State has contested the venue chosen by Schuster. Though we realize that the State may encounter difficulties if all the inmates of Dannemora are permitted to choose venue, and though we do not impute to the State any deliberate desire to delay Schuster’s hearing, we wonder why the State could not have waived this venue issue in view of the special circumstances here.
The present case concerns Schuster’s attempts to obtain legal research material to aid him in his efforts to be released from Dannemora. In September 1968, Schuster, who then had $75.00 in spendable assets, requested permission from Dr. Herold, the then director of Dannemora, to use $40.00 of his funds to establish a credit with West Publishing Company for the purchase of legal materials. This request was denied.
Schuster then petitioned the Clinton County Court for an order directing Dr. Herold to allow him to make the desired withdrawal of funds, this time naming $50 as the amount to be transferred. This petition was denied, apparently on the basis of a telephone conversation in which Dr. Herold stated that Dannemora had a substantial law library and that Schuster had ready access to it.
In November 1968, Schuster filed the present application in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3), alleging that there was no substantial law library at Dannemora and that Dr. Herold’s refusal to allow him to purchase and retain law books was a deprivation of his constitutionally protected right of access to the courts guaranteed by the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The application requested the issuance of an order directing Dr. Her-old to permit petitioner to use cash from his personal account for the purchase of law books and other legal materials, to provide petitioner with a list of law books in Dannemora’s inmate library, and to permit petitioner to borrow and use such books under reasonable conditions and for reasonable periods of time. Dr. Herold, although duly served with a copy of petitioner’s application, chose not to respond thereto; instead he wrote a letter to Judge Port reiterating his previous statement to the state courts that Dannemora had an “extensive law library.” After this letter was received by Judge Port, he dismissed Schuster’s application without 'granting a hearing upon the petition. This appeal followed.
The deputy director of Dannemora, in a letter to Schuster’s appointed counsel on this appeal, revealed that the “extensive law library” of which Dr. Herold had boasted consisted of six works, two of which could not be removed from the Supervisor’s office. Some time after Schuster’s petition was dismissed Dr. Herold was replaced as Director of Dannemora by Dr. Paul C. Agnew, and Dr. Agnew, apparently realizing the absurdity of the position taken by his predecessor, wrote a letter to Schuster granting him permission to use any of his available funds to purchase legal materials and according him unlimited access to the six works in the Dannemora library.
Thus it appears that Schuster has received the relief which he sought below. Although he argues that there is no guarantee that Dr. Agnew will adhere to the position taken in his letter, Dr. Agnew has shown no indication of bad faith, and we cannot properly impute Dr. Her-old’s bad faith to Dr. Agnew.
Schuster also argues on appeal that the lack of adequate library facilities at Dannemora deprives him of access to the courts. This claim was not presented in his petition to the court below. We readily acknowledge that indigent prisoners are often at a disadvantage in preparing legal papers and that serious constitutional questions may be raised when state action interferes with the preparation of petitions to the courts. See Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483, 89 S.Ct. 747, 21 L.Ed.2d 718 (1969). However, the question which Schuster now for the first time poses upon appeal is of first impression in this circuit, and its resolution should await a full hearing in the district courts.
Therefore, as Schuster only claimed in his petition that there was active state interference with his access to legal materials, a claim now fully met by the changed attitude at Dannemora, we must dismiss the present appeal as moot.
. The letter reads:
“[Roy Schuster] has $73.62 in his account which is spendable. We have an extensive law library here and he is at liberty to review and study any book in this legal library.
“A short while ago, I received a request from him that a certain amount of money be placed with a law book firm so that he could purchase certain law books from this firm. It is a regulation that we do no [sic] allow a patient to keep these law books in his personal property. They can be withdrawn from our library, studied and returned.”
. The six works are: McKinney’s Domestic Law Book 14 (2 parts), 1967 Civil Practice Annual, Correction Law, Penal Law (2 parts), Criminal Code (3 parts), Gilbert’s Criminal Code and Penal Law —1965.
. Inasmuch as Schuster had no counsel below, we must construe his application broadly. However, we cannot read Schuster's application, which alleges only active interference with his access to legal materials, to include a claim that the State has an affirmative duty to provide a library of law books to indigent inmates.
. We note also that Schuster is represented by counsel in his proceedings in the state courts and that he alleges no present need for legal materials which cannot be obtained through such counsel.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officialss"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0