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 "private business and its executives". 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:
David A. CARLSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Appellee.
No. 90-5562.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted June 13, 1991.
Decided Sept. 24, 1991.
Paul Engh, Minneapolis, Minn., for appellant.
March S. Crain, Anoka, Minn., argued (Hubert H. Humphrey, III, St. Paul, Minn., and Robert M.A. Johnson, Anoka, Minn., on the brief), for appellee.
Before ARNOLD and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges, and RONEY, Senior Circuit Judge.
The Honorable Paul H. Roney, United States Senior Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit, sitting by designation.
WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.
David Allen Carlson appeals from the district court’s order adopting the magistrate judge’s recommendation that Carlson’s petition for writ of habeas corpus be denied. We affirm.
I.
On March 20, 1976, the nearly nude body of twelve-year-old Lisa Wahl was found in the woods near Carlson’s home. Because he was one of the two people to last see Lisa alive, police questioned Carlson at his home about his activities between the time of Lisa’s disappearance and the time of the discovery of her body. The questioning officers noticed a dark stain on Carlson’s jacket and asked him about it. When Carlson gave an implausible answer and refused to cooperate, the officers arrested him and seized the jacket.
At trial, the prosecution presented evidence that demonstrated that hairs found in Lisa’s hand and on her groin matched samples taken from Carlson and that hairs found in Carlson’s bedroom matched samples taken from Lisa’s head. An analyst from the crime lab testified to the similarities between the hairs used as evidence at trial and samples taken from Carlson and from Lisa’s body. A second analyst testified in much the same way, going on to testify that there was a 1 in 4500 chance that the head hairs found in Lisa’s hands were not Carlson’s and a 1 in 800 chance that the pubic hairs found on Lisa’s groin were not Carlson’s. Evidence was presented that established that the blood stain on Carlson’s coat and a spot of blood found on the floor of Carlson’s bedroom matched Lisa’s blood type.
During a lengthy closing argument, the prosecutor referred to his own daughter and appealed to the jury to remember their own children. He referred to the length of time it took for Lisa Wahl to die and the suffering she went through. He appealed to the jury to “prevail over evil.” Carlson did not object to the prosecutor’s closing argument, nor did he ask for a curative instruction to the jury. The jury was instructed that it was to consider only the evidence and that the arguments of counsel were not evidence.
Carlson was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which affirmed his conviction. State v. Carlson, 267 N.W.2d 170 (Minn.1978).
II.
We address six issues in this appeal. Carlson claims that he was arrested without probable cause; that he should have been given Miranda warnings before the initial questioning at his home; that expert testimony as to probability of the hairs not being Carlson’s hairs was improperly admitted; that the prosecution’s closing argument was improper; that the destruction during testing of the entire blood sample from his coat unfairly prejudiced him; and, finally, that the evidence was insufficient, as a matter of law, to convict him.
Carlson first claims that there was no probable cause for his arrest. He argues that the bloodstain and hair evidence, the statements he made to police, and the evidence found in his home after his arrest were tainted by an illegal arrest and should not have been introduced at trial. This argument is barred, however, by Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976). There, the Supreme Court held that
where the State has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim, the Constitution does not require that a state prisoner be granted federal habeas corpus relief on the ground that evidence obtained in an unconstitutional search or seizure was introduced at his trial.
Id. at 482, 96 S.Ct. at 3046. Carlson appealed this issue to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which found that probable cause existed for Carlson’s arrest. State v. Carlson, 267 N.W.2d at 174. Thus, Carlson had an opportunity to fully and fairly litigate this claim, and he is foreclosed from renewing it in this proceeding.
Second, Carlson argues that he should have received Miranda warnings before the initial questioning at his home. We review the magistrate’s finding that Carlson was not in custody at the time of the initial questioning under a clearly erroneous standard. United States v. Griffin, 922 F.2d 1343 (8th Cir.1990). We will affirm the finding unless it is unsupported by substantial evidence in the record, is based on an erroneous interpretation of the law, or we are left with a firm conviction that a mistake has been made. United States v. Jorgensen, 871 F.2d 725, 728 (8th Cir.1989). We find no clear error in the magistrate’s finding that Carlson was not in custody and that no Miranda warnings were necessary at the time of the initial questioning.
Third, Carlson claims that expert testimony as to the probability of the hairs not being Carlson’s hairs was improperly admitted. Carlson, acting pro se, did not raise this issue in the district court. Pro se petitions should be liberally construed in favor of the petitioner. See, e.g., Wallace v. Lockhart, 701 F.2d 719, 727 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 934, 104 S.Ct. 340, 78 L.Ed.2d 308 (1983); Hill v. Wyrick, 570 F.2d 748, 751-52 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 921, 98 S.Ct. 2272, 56 L.Ed.2d 764 (1978). Carlson’s habeas corpus petition challenged the admission of testimony from the crime lab analyst. Even construing the petition liberally, however, we cannot say that it challenges the admission of statistical evidence given by the second analyst. Carlson cannot claim that he was unaware of the issue at the time he filed his petition in the district court, since it was fully considered by the Minnesota Supreme Court. That court found that the statistical evidence was improperly admitted, but that it was cumulative and therefore its admission constituted harmless error. State v. Carlson, 267 N.W.2d at 176. Since this issue was not raised below, it is not properly before us, and we will not consider it on appeal. Warden v. Wyrick, 770 F.2d 112, 114 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1035, 106 S.Ct. 600, 88 L.Ed.2d 579 (1985).
Even if this issue were properly before us, Carlson’s argument would fail. State law governs questions about the admissibility of evidence. Berrisford v. Wood, 826 F.2d 747, 749 (8th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1016, 108 S.Ct. 722, 98 L.Ed.2d 671 (1988). We will reverse an evidentiary ruling only if the error
infringes upon a specific federal constitutional right or is so grossly or conspicuously prejudicial that it fatally infected the trial and denied the defendant the fundamental fairness that is the essence of due process.
Id. (citations omitted). The Minnesota Supreme Court held that the admission of statistical evidence was harmless error, and we agree.
Fourth, Carlson claims that the prosecutor’s closing argument was improper and unfairly prejudiced him. As indicated above, Carlson made no objection to the prosecutor’s' remarks at the time, nor did he request a curative instruction to the jury. We will reverse for prosecutorial misconduct only if the conduct, even if improper, so prejudiced Carlson that he was unable to obtain a fair trial. See United States v. Baker, 855 F.2d 1353, 1362 (8th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1069, 109 S.Ct. 2072, 104 L.Ed.2d 636 (1989). Having reviewed the comments Carlson identifies as objectionable, we agree with the magistrate judge that the prosecution did not misstate the facts and that the alleged improper statements, when viewed in the context of the entire argument did not rise to the level of depriving Carlson of a fair trial.
Fifth, Carlson claims that the destruction of the entire blood sample from his coat when the crime lab tested it unfairly prejudiced him and deprived him of due process. The magistrate applied Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 56, 109 S.Ct. 333, 336, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988). Under Youngblood, due process is violated only if there is bad faith on the part of the government. Here, the magistrate found no bad faith on the part of the crime lab analyst who performed the tests, and we agree. The sample was very small and the test was run twice because the first result was less than certain.
Last, Carlson claims that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction. We will overturn a state conviction for insufficient evidence only when, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we are convinced that no rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). Carlson was the last person to be seen with Lisa Wahl. Her body was found 200 yards from his house. The hairs found clutched in her hand and stuck to her groin matched samples taken from Carlson, and the hair found in Carlson’s bedroom matched Lisa’s. The bloodstain found on Carlson’s coat and the blood spot found on the floor of Carlson’s bedroom matched Lisa’s blood. Accordingly, we cannot say that a rational jury could not have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Carlson murdered Lisa Wahl.
We express our appreciation to appointed counsel for his diligent efforts in presenting this appeal.
The district court’s order denying the petition for writ of habeas corpus is affirmed.
. The Honorable Diana E. Murphy, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota.
. The Honorable Bernard P. Becker, late a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Minnesota.
. The transcript of the closing argument is about thirty pages long. Transcript of Record at 52.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0