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 v. BOYER.
No. 8888.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia.
Argued May 22, 1945.
Decided July 9, 1945.
Mr. Bernard Margolius, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. Edward M. Curran, United States Attorney, and Charles B. Murray, John D. Lane, and John P. Burke, Assistant United States Attorneys, all of Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellant.
No appearance for appellee.
Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and MILLER and EDGERTON, Associate Justices.
EDGERTON, Associate Justice.
Appellee was convicted in the Municipal Court of obtaining money by false pretenses. There was ample evidence that he cashed a check which he knew to be worthless. He was cross-examined about previous convictions on other bad check charges, and was allowed to say in explanation that those charges were all due to a mistake of his secretary. But the court did not allow him to explain the circumstances of a previous conviction of embezzlement. For this reason the Municipal Court of Appc reversed his present conviction and ordered a new trial. The government appeals from this reversal.
The fact that a witness has been convicted of a crime may be shown, on the theory that it diminishes the value of his testimony. The question is whether he may then explain the circumstances of his conviction in order to mitigate its apparent effect on his credibility. We agree with the Municipal Court of Appeals that it is unfair to the witness to permit no explanation, particularly when he is at the same time a defendant in a criminal case and “the prior conviction, though permitted solely for the purpose of affecting the credibility of the defendant, may have some tendency in the minds of the jury to prove his guilt of the crime for which he is then on trial.” It may have such a tendency even when it has no actual bearing on his credibility. Whether the witness is or is not a defendant, if the opposing party introduces his previous convictions we think the witness should be allowed to make such reasonably brief “protestations on his own behalf as he may feel able to make with a due regard to the penalties of perjury.” Since not all guilty men are equally guilty and some convicted men are innocent, we think the witness should be allowed either to extenuate his ;gu'ilt or to assert his innocence of the previous charges.
The government contends that if an explanation or denial is permitted it •opens the way to a collateral inquiry which may be long and confusing. Fear of such a result has led some courts to exclude all evidence designed to mitigate or rebut the im-peachment which results from proof of a prior conviction. But there is respectable authority to the contrary. It is generally agreed that in order to save time and avoid ■confusion of issues, inquiry into a previous ■crime must be stopped before its logical possibilities are exhausted; the witness ■cannot call other witnesses to corroborate his story and the opposing party cannot call •other witnesses to refute it. The disputed ■question is whether inquiry into a previous crime should stop (1) with proof of the •conviction of the witness or (2) with any reasonably brief “protestations on his own behalf” which he may wish to make. The second alternative will seldom be materially more confusing or time-consuming than the first, if the trial judge duly exercises his “considerable discretion in admitting or rejecting evidence.” And we think the second alternative is more conducive to the ends of justice. The jury is not likely to give undue weight to an ex-convict’s uncorroborated assertion of innocence or of .extenuating circumstances. Just where to draw the line, in. order to avoid both unfairness to the witness and confusion of issues, is a question which must frequently arise. The correct rule in such cases, we think,, is to recognize a wide discretion in the trial judge. He observes the conduct of counsel, the reaction of the witness under examination, and the resulting effect upon the jury. In other words, he is aware as no appellate court can be of the courtroom psychology and can best determine whether particular testimony should or should not be received.
The trial court’s refusal in the present case to let appellee offer any explanation whatever of one conviction, while technically wrong, does not justify a reversal. It related to a different kind of offense from the one for-which appellee was on trial. There was convincing proof of his guilt of the bad check charge which was the only issue to be tried. The jury knew that he had previously been convicted on similar charges. He was permitted to explain all his convictions but one. In spite of this the jury did not believe his testimony. In view of the number of his offenses, it is scarcely believable that failure to explain only one of them could have affected the verdict. Accordingly the judgment of the trial court should have been affirmed. The judgment of the Municipal Court of Appeals is therefore reversed.
Reversed.
D.C.Code, 1940, § 22 — 1301.
Boyer v. United States, Mun.Ct.App.D.C., 40 A.2d 247.
D.C.Code 1940, § 14 — 305. This provision covers both felonies and misdemeanors. Bostic v. United States, 68 App.D.C. 167, 94 F.2d 636, certiorari denied 303 U.S. 635, 58 S.Ct. 523, 82 L.Ed. 1095.
Wigmore on Evidence, 3d ed., § 1117(3).
Cf. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent (1932).
Wagman v. United. States, 6 Cir., 269 F. 568, certiorari denied, 255 U.S. 572, 41 S.Ct. 376, 65 L.Ed. 792.
E. g., Lamoureux v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 169 Mass. 338, 47 N.E. 1009 (Holmes, J.).
E. g., Wagman v. United States, supra, note 6; Donnelly v. Donnelly, 156 Md. 81, 143 A. 648.
Bracey v. United States, 79 U.S.App.D.C. 23, 142 P.2d 85, 89.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0