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, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael Stanley NORRIS, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 85-1772.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
May 30, 1986.
Sumner J. Hatch, Salt Lake City, Utah, for defendant-appellant.
Brent D. Ward, U.S. Atty., and Samuel Alba, Asst. U.S. Atty., Salt Lake City, Utah, for plaintiff-appellee.
Before HOLLOWAY, Chief Judge, LOGAN and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judges.
LOGAN, Circuit Judge.
Defendant, Michael Stanley Norris, appeals his criminal conviction as an accessory after the fact to a robbery of a Brinks armored car. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3, 1951.
In July 1984 Richard Scutari and others robbed the Brinks car in California. In December 1984 Norris was seen traveling by car with Scutari in Utah. In January 1985 Norris was traced to and arrested in Alabama.
The Brinks robbery, which was the federal crime underlying Norris’ charge as an accessory, was listed as obstructing, delaying, or affecting commerce by threats of violence, as prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 1951. The government presented extensive evidence at trial to show a close connection between Scutari and Norris. Norris was convicted by a jury and sentenced to a prison term.
On appeal Norris claims that (1) the trial court improperly instructed the jury that the government need not show Norris knew Scutari’s name was Scutari, although it must show that the man who had been with Norris in Utah was the Scutari who had committed the robbery; (2) the evidence at trial was legally insufficient to show Norris knew Scutari had committed the holdup; and (3) 18 U.S.C. § 1951 had not been violated. We affirm.
Norris’ counsel did not object to the contested jury instruction at trial. This precludes our consideration of it on appeal unless the instruction constituted “plain error.” See Fed.R.Crim.P. 30, 52(b); United States v. Kilbum, 596 F.2d 928, 935 (10th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 966, 99 S.Ct. 1517, 59 L.Ed.2d 782 (1979). There was no denial of a fundamental right here; the instruction was not hopelessly confusing, as alleged. Rather, it was correct under 18 U.S.C. § 3.
Norris bases his insufficiency of the evidence claim on the lack of direct evidence that he knew an offense had been committed. But the knowledge required by 18 U.S.C. § 3 may be shown wholly by circumstantial evidence. United States v. Burnette, 698 F.2d 1038, 1051 (9th Cir. 1983). The circumstantial evidence presented at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the government, fully supports the jury’s verdict. See, e.g., R. 111, 75-82, 87-91, 104-07; R. IV, 199-202, 220-22, 272-83, 307-54.
Norris’ final argument is that the robbery did not interfere with interstate commerce, as required by 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(3). We note initially that § 1951, the “Hobbs Act,” was enacted primarily to deal with labor racketeering and extortion. See United States v. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396, 401-10, 93 S.Ct. 1007, 1010-15, 35 L.Ed.2d 379 (1973); United States v. Green, 350 U.S. 415, 418-21, 76 S.Ct. 522, 524-27, 100 L.Ed. 494 (1956). But the Supreme Court dispelled any doubt over the Act’s application to crimes of the sort involved here in United States v. Culbert, 435 U.S. 371, 98 S.Ct. 1112, 55 L.Ed.2d 349 (1978). In Culbert a unanimous Court held that racketeering was not an essential requirement of the crime; it held that a single attempt to extort money from a banker fell within the statute’s prohibition. Id. at 374-80, 98 S.Ct. at 1114-17.
Section 1951 literally prohibits any act that “affects commerce ... by robbery____” With little discussion, courts
have allowed § 1951 to be used against ordinary robberies. See e.g., United States v. Scaife, 749 F.2d 338, 341, 347-48 (6th Cir.1984) (general store); United States v. Caldarazzo, 444 F.2d 1046, 1048-49 (7th Cir.1971) (jewelry salesman), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 958, 92 S.Ct. 328, 30 L.Ed.2d 276 (1971). A de minimis effect on commerce has been held to be enough to violate § 1951. United States v. Conn, 769 F.2d 420, 424 (7th Cir.1985) (state court clerk accepting bribes). A mere “depletion of assets” of a firm engaged in interstate commerce will meet the requirement. United States v. Jackson, 748 F.2d 1535, 1537 (11th Cir.1984) (bank officer’s extortion).
We therefore must conclude that this Brinks robbery violated 18 U.S.C. § 1951. Norris assisted a person who had committed “an offense against the United States,” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3.
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