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. Edgar C. McINTOSH, Jr., Appellant.
No. 79-5036.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 4, 1979.
Decided Dec. 18, 1979.
Charles W. Schoeneman, Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Janet Hall, Asst. U. S. Atty. (William B. Cummings, U. S. Atty. and Stephen R. Barnett, Sp. Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., on brief), for appellee.
Before HALL, PHILLIPS and MURNA-GHAN, Circuit Judges.
K. K. HALL, Circuit Judge:
Edgar C. McIntosh, Jr. appeals his federal tax evasion convictions for failure to report gambling income under 26 U.S.C. § 7201. He contends that prosecution should .be barred because a state prosecutor promised his attorneys that no federal charges would follow his plea of guilty to gambling charges in state court. The district court conducted an evidentiary hearing and held against appellant, finding that the promise was not made in fact. Also, the district court ruled that even if the promise had been made, it would not be binding on federal prosecutors because there was no authority for the state prosecutor to make it. We agree and affirm.
Appellant was charged in a Virginia court for running a gambling operation on his business premises. Before plea bargaining could be finalized by his first attorney, appellant was arrested a second time and charged with continuing the gambling operations. A second attorney was retained, who, along with the first, accompanied appellant to the courthouse on the day scheduled for his state trial. In a hallway, the defense attorneys and the prosecutor discussed the possibility of entering a plea rather than going to trial. The three attorneys struck a bargain and appellant immediately entered his plea in court.
At the evidentiary hearing conducted on the federal tax evasion charges, appellant attempted to prove the substance of the state court plea bargain. One defense attorney testified that he thought the prosecutor promised to pay $3,000, which had been seized as evidence of gambling, to the Internal Revenue Service, and “to clear [appellant] with the IRS.” The other defense attorney testified:
THE WITNESS: [The state prosecutor told] me that Internal Revenue would not get involved with this case only with the exception that they would take the $3,000 and that would consummate the affair and he would not be prosecuted.
THE COURT: [He] told you that he would not be prosecuted by the Federal authorities?
THE WITNESS: I don’t know if he used the term federal authorities.
THE COURT: Use the term he told you.
THE WITNESS: By the Internal Revenue.
Appellant testified that his attorneys had “guaranteed” him no federal prosecution would follow his state court plea.
Noticeably absent was any evidence to show there was authority granted by any federal official for the promise. At no time, before or after the plea, did either defense attorney contact a United States Attorney or IRS official about federal charges which might arise out of their client’s plea in state court. Also, it is clear that federal authorities had done nothing to imbue the state prosecutor with apparent authority, and there appellant’s argument must fail.
Furthermore, here, neither attorney stated whether the prosecutor himself had represented that he might have such authority. One attorney testified that he could not recall whether or not the prosecutor claimed to have had prior negotiations with authorized federal officials, but the attorney remembered the prosecutor said he had a brother-in-law who was a local IRS agent.
The state prosecutor testified that his only call to the IRS concerning appellant was after the plea was entered and it was made to an agent, who was his brother-in-law. He remembered it was made after the plea because it followed a reminder call from one of the defense attorneys.
The IRS agent had no recollection of the date of the call, but he agreed with the state prosecutor’s testimony that their discussion was limited to appellant’s tax liabilities and whether or not the money seized by the state could be used to satisfy them.
The state prosecutor denied any promise “to clear [appellant] with the IRS” or to have federal authorities forego criminal prosecution. He claimed that he promised the money seized by the state would voluntarily be turned over to the IRS to satisfy any jeopardy assessments arising out of the admitted gambling activities. It is not disputed that the money was released by the state officials.
The district court credited the prosecutor’s version of the bargain, and appellant contends his finding, based upon an assessment of the credibility of the witnesses, is clearly erroneous. Also, more importantly for this appeal, he argues that the very fact a state prosecutor might make a promise to prevent federal prosecution is sufficient to bar it so long as the promise was made and was reasonably believed by his attorneys. For this contention, he relies upon Cooper v. United States, 594 F.2d 12 (4th Cir. 1979). His reliance is misplaced.
In Cooper, an Assistant United States Attorney offered a certain plea bargain for federal charges to Cooper’s defense attorney, who in turn solicited its acceptance from Cooper. Before Cooper’s attorney could convey acceptance to the prosecutor, the offer was withdrawn. We held that the technical rules of offer and acceptance in contract law should not defeat a criminal defendant’s personal acceptance, since, under the facts presented, it could irreparably affect the defense attorney’s credibility, impairing the effectiveness of his representation.
The issues here do not involve technical rules of contract; they concern the content of the plea bargain and whether any authority existed which could make it binding on parties who were not privy to it. These issues were not presented in Cooper, and we do not think its thoughtful analysis leads to the proposition that authority to make an offer to forego prosecution can rest upon a subjective belief of the defendant or his counsel.
Contrary to appellant’s argument, Cooper does not shun fundamental contract and agency principles where the content and validity of a plea bargain is at issue.
The fairness of any voluntary agreement turns upon the parties’ expectations, first, that it will be honored by the other party and, second, that redress is available when necessary in the courts. Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 260-62, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971). With predictability and reliance as the foundation of plea bargaining itself, we must apply fundamental contract and agency principles to plea bargains as the best means to fair enforcement of the parties’ agreed obligations. Where, such as in Cooper, some technical rule works directly to impair a defendant’s personal acceptance of an offer and deny a substantial right such as effective assistance of counsel, we will distinguish the application of such rules to the facts before us.
But as here, where the content of a plea bargain and the authority for its offer are at issue, we think traditional precepts of contract and agency should apply. No authority to settle appellant’s federal criminal liabilities was vested in the state prosecutor by federal prosecutors, either in fact or appearance. United States v. Long, 511 F.2d 878 (7th Cir.) cert. denied, 423 U.S. 895, 96 S.Ct. 196, 46 L.Ed.2d 128 (1975). A bare representation by an unauthorized party cannot bind federal prosecutors to forego prosecution. Id. at 881-82. The source of such requisite authority is vested by the Constitution in the federal executive and none other.
Finally, we think the district court’s findings about the substance of the bargain are not erroneous.
The judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.

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