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:
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Jasper J. MIRABILE, Appellant.
No. 74-1367.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted Sept. 9, 1974.
Decided Oct. 15, 1974.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 7, 1974.
James L. Rider, Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Michael A. DeFeo, Sp. Atty., Dept, of Justice, Kansas City, Mo., for appellee.
Before VAN OOSTERHOUT, Senior Circuit Judge, and HEANEY and STEPHENSON, Circuit Judges.
STEPHENSON, Circuit Judge.
The primary focus of this appeal is the federal mail fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (1970). Issues have been raised regarding the scope of that statute and its applicability in the context of a state misdemeanor violation, namely, fraudulent misrepresentation of gross sales on sales/use tax returns. In addition, this appeal challenges the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss on the basis of selective and discriminatory prosecution. We affirm.
Appellant Mirabile, owner and operator of a Kansas City, Missouri restaurant, was indicted by a federal grand jury in 1973. The indictment charged that Mirabile had devised and taken part in a scheme in which the gross retail sales of his restaurant were understated on the monthly sales/use tax returns that he caused to be mailed to the Missouri Department of Revenue. As a result, the state was defrauded of approximately $28,000 over a two and one-half year period. In United States v. Mirabile, 369 F.Supp. 1108 (W.D.Mo.1974), the district court denied a motion to dismiss the indictment and held that federal jurisdiction under § 1341 was proper. Subsequently, appellant was found guilty of mail fraud in a jury trial and placed on probation for five years.
The initial contention on appeal is that a scheme to defraud the state of Missouri by submitting false sales/use tax returns by mail is beyond the intended scope of § 1341. Appellant urges that the use of the mail fraud statute should be restricted to frauds involving federal injury and abuse of the Postal Service. It is argued that in furtherance of the intended purpose of the statute and in the interest of federal-state relations, all other fraud should be left to the states for enforcement. The fact that the statute has never been used in connection with fraudulent tax returns is, according to appellant, evidence of the error in the instant case.
However, the statute on its face is not limited in the manner suggested by the appellant; nor does it exempt the conduct in which appellant engaged. It clearly applies to “any scheme or artifice to defraud” in which the jurisdictional means (the mails) are employed. United States v. States, 488 F.2d 761, 764 (8th Cir. 1973). In the absence of a clear showing of contrary legislative intent, National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. National Association of Railroad Passengers, 414 U.S. 453, 458, 94 S.Ct. 690, 38 L.Ed.2d 646 (1974), “the general rule of statutory construction requires the courts to ascertain the intent of legislation from the language used * * * if it is clear and plain and the act is internally cohesive.” Community Blood Bank v. F. T. C., 405 F.2d 1011, 1015 (8th Cir. 1969).
We must interpret the plain language of § 1341 “broadly and liberally * -x- * to further the purpose of the statute; namely, to prohibit the misuse of the mails to further fraudulent enterprises.” United States v. States, supra 488 F.2d at 764. Such an interpretation is totally consistent with the ever-expanding role the mail fraud statute has played.
The diversity of schemes brought within the purview of § 1341 illustrates the expansive reading that is generally given to that statute. See, e. g., United States v. States, supra 488 F.2d at 764-765; United States v. George, 477 F.2d 508 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 827, 94 S.Ct. 155, 38 L.Ed.2d 61 (1973); United States v. Edwards, 458 F.2d 875 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1029, 93 S.Ct. 459, 34 L.Ed.2d 148 (1972); United States v. Shewfelt, 455 F.2d 836 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 944, 92 S.Ct. 2042, 32 L.Ed.2d 331 (1972); United States v. Rosenblum, 339 F.2d 473 (2d Cir. 1964). Thus the contention that § 1341 was not meant to cover the fraud in the instant case is not persuasive.
Appellant argues that the application of § 1341 in this case is an impermissible intrusion into state affairs. However, the fact that the underlying fraud here may violate state law does not exclude it from the proscription of the mail fraud statute. Parr v. United States, 363 U.S. 370, 389, 80 S.Ct. 1171, 4 L.Ed.2d 1277 (1960); United States v. Flaxman, 495 F.2d 344, 349 (7th Cir. 1974); United States v. States, supra 488 F.2d at 767; United States v. Edwards, 458 F.2d 875, 880 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1029, 93 S.Ct. 459, 34 L.Ed.2d 148 (1972).
Appellant’s contention is premised upon a basic misinterpretation of the rationale behind the mail fraud statute. This court recently stated, “[t]he focus of the statute is upon the misuse of the Postal Service, not the regulation of state affairs, and Congress clearly has the authority to regulate such misuse of the mails.” United States v. States, supra 488 F.2d at 767. In this case, as in States, principles of federalism do not provide a basis for reversal.
Appellant also alleges that the mailings in this case were not an integral part of the scheme to defraud and therefore the fraud does not fall within the proscription of the mail fraud statute. We disagree. In United States v. Nance, 502 F.2d 615 (8th Cir. 1974), this court discussed the “use of the mails” requirement in connection with § 1341 and stated:
* * -x- To bring the scheme within the ambit of the mail fraud statute, the mails must bá used for the purpose of executing the scheme, Kann v. United States, 323 U.S. 88, 93 [65 S.Ct. 148, 89 L.Ed. 88] (1944); must be employed before the scheme reaches fruition, United States v. Maze, 414 U.S. 395, [402] [94 S.Ct. 645, 38 L.Ed.2d 603] (1974); yet, need not be contemplated as an essential element of the scheme, Pereira v. United States, supra, 347 U.S. [1], at 8 [74 S.Ct. 358, 98 L.Ed. 435] (1954).
In the case before us, as in United States v. Flaxman, supra 495 F.2d at 348-349, the fraud did not reach fruition until the tax forms were mailed to the state revenue authorities. This fact distinguishes the instant case from United States v. Maze, 414 U.S. 395, 94 S.Ct. 645, 38 L.Ed.2d 603 (1974), and brings appellant’s conduct in executing the fraud directly within the scope of § 1341. See United States v. Britton, 500 F.2d 1257 (8th Cir. 1974); United States v. Miles, 498 F.2d 394 (8th Cir. 1974); United States v. Gaskill, 491 F.2d 981, 984 (8th Cir. 1974).
Appellant’s final contention is that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the indictment for selective and discriminatory prosecution. We disagree. The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing during which appellant presented his evidence with respect to the motion. This included cross-examination of the prosecutor who voluntarily testified with respect to certain interrogatories propounded by appellant. Although appellant claims his questioning of the prosecutor was unduly circumscribed by the trial court, we find no abuse of discretion in this regard. See United States v. Berrigan, 482 F.2d 171, 179-182 (3d Cir. 1973). Cf. United States v. Falk, 479 F.2d 616, 619-624 (7th Cir. 1973). We are satisfied from an examination of the hearing record that the trial court was warranted in holding that there was insufficient evidence to support a finding of selective and discriminatory prosecution.
Affirmed.
. The statute, 18 U.S.O. § 1341 (1970), provides, in relevant part, as follows :
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises * * * for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting to do so * * * knowingly causes to be delivered by mail according to the directions thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any (matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service) shall be fined not more than $1,000 or be imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
. We similarly reject appellant’s attempt to equate the present case with Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 19, 77 L.Ed. 511 (1932). The interpretation that, we iiave given to § 1341 produces neither the “absurd consequences” nor the “flagrant injustice” that brought about the kiorreUs entrapment doctrine. Id. at 287 U. S. 446—452, 53 S.Ct. 19, 77 L.Ed. 511.

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: 1