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. Mauro M. MANDELLO, Appellant.
No. 13830.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
June 4, 1970.
H. Bradley Evans, Jr., Alexandria, Va. (Court-appointed) [Evans & Economou, Alexandria, Va., on brief] for appellant.
C. P. Montgomery, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty. (Brian P. Gettings, U. S. Atty., and David H. Hopkins, Asst. U. S. Atty., on brief) for appellee.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, SOBELOFF, Circuit Judge, and RUSSELL, District Judge.
PER CURIAM:
The appellant was the manager of the Non-Commissioned Officers’ Club (NCO) at Fort Myer, Virginia. As such he was charged with the responsibility of accounting for the monies derived from the several operations of the Club. Included in such Club facilities were certain coin-operated machines. The appellant was indicted, under Section 641, 18 U.S.C., for the conversion to his own use of that portion of the receipts of these coin-operated machines due the Government on certain specified occasions.
The appellant was represented at the trial by court-appointed counsel. At such trial, appellant conceded that he had received the monies in question but, disclaiming emphatically any embezzlement of such funds, he contended that his admitted failure properly to account for same arose out of inadvertence or mistake.
Following his conviction, the appellant retained private counsel and thereupon through such counsel moved for a new trial. In support of such motion, various affidavits setting forth certain circumstances and naming some individuals whose testimony, it was thought, might have proved helpful to appellant’s defense, had they been called as witnesses, were filed by the appellant. Primarily, the motion was based on the appellant’s contention that his court-appointed trial counsel had failed to demand the tapes showing the daily receipts realized from the Club’s several operations. These tapes, it was suggested, might have shown that the funds derived on the dates in question from the operation of the coin-operated machines had been subsequently recorded on a later date and were thus actually received by the Government, though tardily reported. Such possible evidence is described in appellant’s brief as being “the crux of his defense”. The appellant asserted in his affidavit, filed in support of his motion for a new trial, that he had requested his trial counsel to secure such tapes and to subpoena certain witnesses whose testimony would support his reliance on the tapes as evidence favorable to his defense. There was, however, no reference to these tapes during the trial other than in this obscure statement during cross-examination of the appellant:
“Q. Now, in answer to your attorney’s question as to what explains the fact that receipts that are shown on the Michael’s Company books for the vending income, the explanation for why it is not shown on the daily receipt forms, the daily activity’s report for the same day?
“A. I don't know if I inadvertently misplaced them, but I said I never knowingly converted any of these receipts to my own, for my own use. Now, it is very possible I would have to check for the next day’s receipt that my safe balanced out over, that I would have to ring it up."
The possible existence of the tapes, together with their possible relevance to appellant’s “theory of defense”, was not really brought in issue by the appellant, so far as the District Court was concerned, until the motion for a new trial; and then there seemed to be some doubt that such tapes were still available.
The motion for a new trial was denied. The appellant thereupon secured the appointment of other counsel to perfect this appeal. By his appeal, he contends that the District Court failed properly to instruct the jury on “the theory of his defense” and that he was denied effective representation by court-appointed counsel at trial.
We affirm.
The two grounds of appeal are inter-dependent. The gravamen of appellant’s complaint is that, through the ineffective representation of his trial counsel, the tapes on which were recorded daily the actual receipts of monies by the Club and which might, if available, have given support to appellant’s contention that the monies claimed to have been embezzled actually had been received by the Government, were not secured and introduced in the record, thereby denying to the appellant a factual basis for a jury instruction incorporating his “theory of defense”, as subsequently developed in his motion for a new trial and as outlined to his counsel prior to trial. So much is recognized and affirmed by appellant’s able and conscientious counsel in this Court. Thus, in summarizing his argument, counsel states in his conclusion: “The question of the jury instructions * * * are (is) inextricably bound up with the claim of ineffective representation.” Certainly, the obscure reference to the tapes by the appellant in his cross-examination was not sufficient to inject into the case the “theory of defense” pressed on the motion for a new trial and now argued in this Court. Only if appellant’s trial counsel had been able to secure and offer at trial evidence relevant to the appellant’s present “theory of defense” — a circumstance which he asserts was not due to counsel’s ineffective representation — would it have been appropriate for the Court to have instructed as the appellant now demands. Accordingly, the real complaint of the appellant — the basis, if any, for both of his claims of error — is the alleged ineffective representation of his trial counsel. This, however, is an issue that should more appropriately be resolved in a Section 2255 proceeding. It would be grossly unfair to the trial counsel to fault his representation without having in the record some statement from him. Courts must be equally vigilant to protect counsel from the unfair imputation of professional neglect as to assure to the defendant effective representation. Perhaps counsel in this case did make appropriate inquiry into the existence or non-existence of the tapes; perhaps he did review such tapes as they were and did conclude that they were valueless to appellant’s defense. Perhaps he did interview the various witnesses suggested by appellant or had a justifiable reason not to do so. These and other questions can more properly be inquired into in a Section 2255 proceeding.
It may be, as counsel for the appellant argues, that where it conclusively appears in the trial record itself that the defendant was not provided on trial with effective representation, the Court will consider the matter on appeal without requiring the defendant to resort to a Section 2255 proceeding. This clearly is not such a case. There is nothing in this trial record to sustain such a conclusion. And the affidavits filed in support of the motion for a new trial cannot be taken as an adequate or proper substitute for the more extensive examination contemplated under a Section 2255 proceeding. See, United States v. Garguilo (2nd Cir. 1963) 324 F.2d 795, 796-798; Brubaker v. Dickson (9th Cir. 1962) 310 F.2d 30, 32, cert. denied 372 U.S. 978, 83 S.Ct. 1110, 10 L.Ed.2d 143.
Nothing said herein is, however, intended to prejudice, or prejudge, in any way appellant’s right to apply for relief in a Section 2255 proceeding, should he choose to invoke such remedy.
The judgment appealed from is
Affirmed.
. The appellant did urge, in his brief, error in the District Court in the admission of certain evidence. In the light of United States v. Windsor (4th Cir. 1969) 417 F.2d 1131, sucli contention was abandoned on argument.

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