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:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John William WILDER, a/k/a William John Wilder, a/k/a William Jay Wilder, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 78-1725.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
Argued Sept. 11, 1979.
Decided May 19, 1980.
Charles W. Daniels of Freedman, Boyd & Daniels, Albuquerque, N. M., for defendant-appellant.
Thomas S. Udall, Asst. U. S. Atty., Albuquerque, N. M. (R. E. Thompson, U. S. Atty., Albuquerque, with him on brief), for plaintiff-appellee.
Before HOLLOWAY and BARRETT, Circuit Judges, and BRIMMER, District Judge.
Of the District of Wyoming, sitting by designation.
BARRETT, Circuit Judge.
John William Wilder (Wilder) appeals from a jury conviction finding him guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. App. § 1202(a)(1), which declares it unlawful for a convicted felon to possess a firearm.
The sole issue on appeal involves the correctness of the trial court’s refusal to grant Wilder’s motion to dismiss the charges based upon his contention that his prior felony conviction was constitutionally infirm.
A factual background should aid in placing the issue in focus.
Wilder was convicted, some ten years pri- or to the instant prosecution, in an Indiana state court, following a guilty plea to a felony charge of burglarizing a grain elevator. When the instant charge was brought, Wilder moved to dismiss on the ground that his prior Indiana felony conviction for burglary was invalid because (a) he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and (b) his guilty plea was involuntarily entered because he had not knowingly and intelligently waived his constitutional rights.
The District Court conducted a full hearing on Wilder’s motion to dismiss. Wilder testified at the hearing that following his arrest in Indiana: he requested the services of an attorney; thereafter he was provided the services of Attorney Jack Richert who was then deputy district attorney for the county, counsel for Wilder’s wife in a pending divorce action, and a part time probation officer for the district court; that because of the “conflicts” seen by Wilder, he (Wilder) notified Richert that he did not wish to be represented by him; that Richert did not advise Wilder of his right to other counsel and that no attorney other than the prosecuting attorney thereafter consulted with or saw Wilder; that after several discussions with the prosecuting attorney, Wilder entered a guilty plea to the burglary offense based on an understanding he reached with the prosecutor that he would be placed on probation; that the court ordered a pre-sentence report which was prepared and submitted by Attorney Richert, serving as probation officer; that the presentence report recommended that Wilder be sentenced to a term of from two to five years, and that this recommendation was adopted by the district court.
No transcript of the Indiana state court plea proceedings is available. However, docket entries from that proceedings reflect that Wilder’s constitutional rights were explained to him, and that he acknowledged them. He specifically waived his right to be represented by counsel.
The federal district court, following the hearing on the motion to dismiss, stated that he did not believe Wilder’s account of his alleged contacts with the deputy district attorney or Wilder’s request for other counsel. The court stated that he found the statements contained in the state court docket entries credible.
After this case was orally argued, the parties were advised by Order of this Court entered on or about September 27, 1979, that all proceedings were abated pending final determination by the United States Supreme Court of Case No. 78-1595—Lewis v. United States, 591 F.2d 978 (4th Cir. 1979), cert. granted, 442 U.S. 939, 99 S.Ct. 2880, 61 L.Ed.2d 309 (1979). In that Order we recognized “the primary issue presented here is whether a defendant convicted of violation of 18 U.S.C. [App.] § 1202(a) which renders it unlawful for one convicted of a felony to possess a firearm may, in such proceeding, collaterally attack the prior conviction, valid on its face, based upon his asserted denial of counsel violative of his Sixth Amendment right.” We there observed that the majority of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Lewis v. United States, supra, held that a defendant convicted under § 1202(a)(1), supra, cannot attack the constitutionality of an outstanding facially valid felony conviction, which, though arguably constitutionally invalid, has not been earlier invalidated for deprivation of right of counsel under the Sixth Amendment.
The United States Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Lewis v. United States on February 27, 1980. See: - U.S. -, 100 S.Ct. 915, 63 L.Ed.2d 198. Thereafter, this Court requested that the parties in the instant case submit supplemental memoranda advising of their views “interpretive thereof [of Lewis v. United States, supra] and its applicability, if any, to the issues presented” in the instant appeal. Both parties have responded. They are in agreement that the Supreme Court decision in Lewis v. United States, supra, controls and that its holding requires affirmance of the District Court judgment in Wilder’s case.
In Lewis v. United States, supra, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of “whether a defendant’s extant prior conviction, flawed because he was without counsel, as required by Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963), may constitute the predicate for a subsequent conviction under § 1202(a)(1) . ”-U.S. at pp.---, 100 S.Ct. at p. 916. The government there introduced in evidence an exemplified copy of the judgment and sentence entered in a 1961 Florida state court proceeding. Shortly before trial, the petitioner’s counsel informed the court that Lewis had not been represented by counsel in the 1961 Florida proceeding in violation of Gideon v. Wainwright, supra. The federal district court ruled that the constitutionality of the outstanding Florida conviction was immaterial with respect to Lewis’ status under § 1202(a)(1) as a previously convicted felon at the time of his arrest. The Court of Appeals affirmed by a divided vote. See: 591 F.2d 978 (4th Cir. 1979). The Supreme Court assumed, for its purposes, that Lewis was in fact without counsel during the 1961 Florida proceedings. Thus, both the statute involved and the constitutional issue raised in Lewis and Wilder are identical. The Supreme Court opined that:
An examination of § 1202(a)(1) reveals that its proscription is directed unambiguously at any person who “has been convicted by a court of the United States or of a State . , . of a felony.” No modifier is present, and nothing suggests any restriction on the scope of the term “convicted.” “Nothing on the face of the statute suggests a congressional intent to limit its coverage to persons [whose convictions are not subject to collateral attack].” United States v. Culbert, 435 U.S. 371, 373, 98 S.Ct. 1112, 1113, 55 L.Ed.2d 349 (1978); see United States v. Naftalin, 441 U.S. 768, 772, 99 S.Ct. 2077, 2081, 60 L.Ed.2d 624 (1979). The statutory language is sweeping, and its plain meaning is that the fact of a felony conviction imposes a firearm disability until the conviction is vacated or the felon is relieved of his disability by some affirmative action, such as a qualifying pardon or a consent from the Secretary of the Treasury.
-U.S. at p.-, 100 S.Ct. at p. 918.
The Supreme Court concluded that “ . . . § 1202(a)(1) prohibits a felon from possessing a firearm despite the fact that the predicate felony may be subject to collateral attack on constitutional grounds.” -U.S. at p.-, 100 S.Ct. at p. 92. In so holding, the Supreme Court reasoned:
We recognize, of course, that under the Sixth Amendment an uncounseled felony conviction cannot be used for certain purposes. See Burgett [Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 88 S.Ct. 258, 19 L.Ed.2d 319 (1967)], Tucker [United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 92 S.Ct. 589, 30 L.Ed.2d 592 (1972)], and Loper [Loper v. Beto, 405 U.S. 473, 92 S.Ct. 1014, 31 L.Ed.2d 374 (1972)], all supra. .The Court, however, has never suggested that an uncounseled conviction is invalid for all purposes. See Scott v. Illinois, 440 U.S. 367, 99 S.Ct. 1158, 59 L.Ed.2d 383 (1979); Loper v. Beto, 405 U.S., at 482, n. 11, 92 S.Ct. at 1019 (plurality opinion).
Use of an uncounseled felony conviction as the basis for imposing a civil firearms disability, enforceable by a criminal sanction, is not inconsistent with Burgett, Tucker, and Loper. In each of those cases, this Court found that the subsequent conviction or sentence violated the Sixth Amendment because it depended upon the reliability of a past uncounseled conviction. The federal gun laws, however, focus not on reliability, but on the mere fact of conviction, or even indictment, in order to keep firearms away from potentially dangerous persons. . . . [I]t is important to note that a convicted felon may challenge the validity of a prior conviction, or otherwise remove his disability, before obtaining a firearm.
-U.S. at pp.---, 100 S.Ct. at pp. 921-922.
WE AFFIRM.

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