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.

Opinion:
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Mervin Jarvis CHEERY, Appellant.
No. 8355.
United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 4, 1961.
Decided Nov. 6, 1961.
LeRoy Scott, Washington, N. C. (Charles P. Green, Raleigh, N. C., on brief), for appellant.
Lafayette Williams, U. S. Atty., Greensboro, N. C. (Abner Alexander, Asst. U. S. Atty., Winston-Salem, N. C., on brief), for appellee.
Before SOPER and BRYAN, Circuit Judges, and MICHIE, District Judge.
MICHIE, District Judge.
Mervin Jarvis Cherry was indicted in the Middle District of North Carolina on a charge of being a party to a conspiracy to violate the Internal Revenue Laws of the United States relating to distilled spirits. He was convicted and sentenced to serve five years of which six months was to be an active sentence, the remainder to be served on probation.
There were twelve other defendants all of whom were convicted or pleaded guilty. The existence of a conspiracy to violate the Internal Revenue Laws relating to distilled liquor was proved up to the hilt and by this appeal the defendant Cherry does not undertake to contend that there was no such conspiracy. He contends first, that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the matter, the evidence against him being based on a mistake of identity, and second, that even if he did the things which one witness, mistaking someone else for him, testified he did, still those things did not prove that he was a party to the conspiracy.
The facts proved with respect to the man who is alleged to have been Cherry can be briefly stated. A government agent, Athan M. Brown, who had accepted work with some of the conspirators, brought a load of sugar to the home of Johnny Richard Davenport and James Henry Davenport who were tenants on a farm owned by the defendant Cherry. The road to the still which was subsequently discovered ran from the Davenports’ home across the Cherry property to the still. The Davenports were admittedly parties to the conspiracy. A man who was unknown to Agent Brown at the time was present at the Davenports’ on the occasion in question and helped to unload the sugar, after first moving some whiskey to make room for the sugar. The man later identified by Agent Brown as Cherry but who was unknown to Agent Brown at the time counted the sugar and said that it was short and further said: “This isn’t the first time we have been short.” He also said: “Another time you brought 6100 pounds in here, and when we counted it, there was only 6000 pounds.”
At some later time the agent was shown a photograph of the defendant Cherry and identified him as the man, then unknown to him, who had helped unload the sugar and made the remark about the shortage. And then at the trial, with Cherry seated in the courtroom, he again definitely identified him as the man whom he had seen on the occasion above referred to and who helped unload the sugar and made the remark about the shortage.
The defendant argues that it was conclusively proved at the trial that there must have been a mistake in identity inasmuch as the defendant was proved to have been in Raleigh at the time or very shortly before the time when Agent Brown stated he saw him at the Davenports’ home and further argues that even if he had been the man whom Agent Brown saw at the Davenports’ home assisting in unloading the sugar that fact alone would not prove that he was a party to the conspiracy.
As to the question of identity we must concede that Cherry’s alibi appears to be a strong one. He and a friend, Shirley Mills, testified that they had gone together to Raleigh on the date in question in the afternoon and had gone to the State Department of Motor Vehicles to have the title of a vehicle transferred. Mrs. Evelyn Boyd, a title examiner for the Department of Motor Vehicles, testified that she remembered the occasion quite distinctly, that it was after her coffee break in the afternoon, that she had waited on one or two other customers before she got to Mr. Cherry and particularly observed him standing in line and that from the fact that it was after her afternoon coffee break and that she had waited on one or two other customers first it must have been an appreciable time after 3:30 p. m. before Cherry could have left her office. Agent Brown testified that it was still light at the time he saw the man he identified as Cherry at the Davenports’ home. And we understand that it is conceded that if Cherry was at Mrs. Boyd’s office at the time she stated he was there he could not have gotten to his farm at the hour the agent says he saw him there.
The alibi sounds impressive on paper but the court has not had the advantage the jury had in hearing and seeing the witnesses as they testified. The jury could have believed that Mrs. Boyd was mistaken as to the time she served Cherry. Possibly it was after lunch rather than after her coffee break. And the jury could have believed that Cherry and his friend, and even Mrs. Boyd, were lying. Agent Boyd’s identification of Cherry by looking at a photograph might be regarded as something less than conclusive but his subsequent identification of him in the courtroom is somewhat stronger. His evidence could be believed by the jury and as above indicated the evidence on behalf of Cherry could be disbelieved. In the face of such conflicting evidence this court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the jury who are the legally constituted triers of fact.
Conceding then that the jury was entitled to believe that Cherry was the man whom Agent Brown saw at the Davenports’, has it been shown that he was a party to the conspiracy?
Counsel for Cherry contend that all that has been proved against Cherry is that he assisted in unloading the sugar after first helping to make room for it by moving some whiskey and they argue that that does not prove that he was a party to the conspiracy. The argument is, in effect, that at most he just happened to be around and gave a helping hand, without being in any other way interested in what was going on.
We have no quarrel with the statement of the law as expounded by counsel. There must be a conspiracy and the accused must be a party to it — not merely a person who happened to help in some limited phase without knowing what it was all about.
“On the other hand, an accused must join in the agreement to be guilty of a violation of the statute, for even if he commits an overt act, he does not violate the statute unless he joined in the agreement.” Marino v. United States, 9 Cir., 91 F.2d 691, 695, 113 A.L.R. 975.
“It has been said over and over again that the conspiracy, not the overt act, is the ‘gist’ of the crime.” United States v. Cohen, 2 Cir., 145 F.2d 82, 94.
“An overt act alone is insufficient to constitute a conspiracy. There must be an unlawful agreement to which the * * * act is referable." Hall v. United States, 10 Cir., 109 F.2d 976, 984.
And we agree that it follows from this principle that one who sells materials with knowledge that they are intended for use in distilling illicit spirits does not thereby become a party to the conspiracy. United States v. Falcone, 311 U.S. 205, 61 S.Ct. 204, 85 L.Ed. 128. And it is contended that the defendant has not been shown to have any knowledge of, or to have been a party to, any conspiracy any more than the man who sold the sugar.
The argument for the defendant might be persuasive if in fact the only evidence connecting him with the conspiracy was the evidence of his assistance in unloading the sugar. But there is more than that. We have adverted before to the fact that the defendant Cherry counted the sugar and claimed it was short. The evidence in full on this point is as follows:
“The Court: Which one of the Davenports did you see when you arrived there?
“The Witness: James Henry Davenport. James Henry Davenport and Mervin Cherry assisted me in unloading this sugar; before we could unload the fifteen hundred pounds of sugar, we would always back into a little shed or lean-to that was built onto the barn so that the car, any activity would be concealed to people driving by on the road, and unload the sugar into the stall; when I arrived there that day, in that stall was some whiskey in cases, some liquor, and some more sugar; and Mervin Cherry, James Henry, and I took this whiskey over to one side to make room for the fifteen hundred pounds of sugar, and Mervin Cherry assisted me with James Henry Davenport in unloading that sugar from my car, the Pontiac, into that barn stall; and Mervin Cherry counted the sugar, and he said there was only fourteen hundred and eighty pounds of the sugar; part of the sugar was in bales; and I counted the sugar, and Jimmie Griffin was there, and he counted the sugar; and it was agreed there was only fourteen hundred and eighty; and Mervin Cherry said this isn’t the first time we have been short; he said another time, he said you brought sixty one hundred pounds in here, and when we counted it, there was only six thousand pounds. In other words, that was the second time I had shorted them on the sugar; one time before it was a hundred pounds, and this time it was twenty.
“Griffin made a note of that, and said he would deduct it from the liquor, and add it on to Ralph’s bill * *- *»
If Cherry had not been a party to the conspiracy but had gone to the place just to see how his tenants were getting along and happened to be there when the sugar arrived and helped to unload it, those facts standing alone probably would be insufficient to show that he was a party to the conspiracy. He might have been an innocent bystander who happened to render a helping hand. But in any such case he would have had no interest in the shortage of the sugar. And he certainly would not have said, “This isn’t the first time we have been short.” (Emphasis supplied.)
This statement shows that Cherry had a personal financial interest in the conspiracy. And the fact that Cherry also stated that he had counted the sugar on a previous occasion when it was short also tends to show that he was not an accidental bystander who happened to lend a helping hand.
We believe therefore that there is sufficient evidence in the record to justify the jury in finding as they did, that Cherry was a party to the conspiracy, and the conviction must therefore be affirmed.
Affirmed.

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

Choices:

Answer: 1