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 respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
James Dale EDWARDS, Appellant, v. Harold R. SWENSON, Warden, Appellee.
No. 20249.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
July 16, 1970.
James Dale Edwards, pro se.
John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Mo., and Kenneth M. Romines, Asst. Atty. Gen., on brief for appellee.
Before VOGEL, GIBSON and BRIGHT, Circuit Judges.
VOGEL, Circuit Judge.
Petitioner-appellant is a state convict presently confined in the Missouri State Penitentiary. He has petitioned the District Court for a writ of habeas corpus adjudicating as invalid his state conviction of first degree murder. This is appellant’s second application for writ of habeas corpus, his first having been dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies under the provisions of 28 U. S.C.A. § 2254(c). Appellant asserts that on December 16, 1965, he was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County of the offense of murder in the first degree; that he was sentenced on that conviction to a term of life imprisonment; that he appealed from the judgment of conviction and imposition of sentence; that the Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed the conviction and sentence on appeal on December 9, 1968 (see State v. Edwards, Mo., 435 S.W.2d 1); that he subsequently filed a petition for federal habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, which was transferred on March 13, 1969, to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri; that the latter court dismissed the petition for writ on March 28, 1969, and on April 16, 1969, denied appellant leave to appeal in forma pauperis and denied a certificate of probable cause, both actions being affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
In appellant’s first application for a writ of federal habeas corpus he recited some eight separate grounds of constitutional error. His second application, the current one, is based upon approximately the same grounds, subsequently, however, waiving all grounds with the exception of two: (1) That he was denied the assistance of counsel, contrary to the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States; and (2) that his conviction was based upon an involuntary confession, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. He asserts that these, as well as the other claimed errors, were passed upon by the Supreme Court of Missouri in his direct appeal as reflected in that court’s opinion published in 435 S.W.2d 1, and that he should not be forced to utilize the provision of Missouri’s post-conviction rule, Missouri Supreme Court Rule 27.26, V.A.M.R. In other words, he claims that he has exhausted his state remedies and is entitled to a hearing on the merits in federal court.
A consideration of the Supreme Court of Missouri’s opinion in 435 S.W. 2d 1-8 indicates that that court did consider and discuss appellant’s eight points, including the two main points now relied on; namely, denial of the assistance of counsel and that the conviction was based upon an involuntary confession obtained in violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. Under the circumstances we think that the appellant has exhausted his state remedies and was entitled to a hearing on the merits in the court below.
The Supreme Court of Missouri has ruled that where the merits of a contention have been determined on direct appeal, they will not be again considered in a post-conviction attack under Missouri Supreme Court Rule 27.26. State v. Durham, Mo., 1967, 416 S.W.2d 79; State v. McMillian, Mo., 1964, 383 S.W.2d 721. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that:
“It is not necessary in such circumstances for the prisoner to ask the state for collateral relief, based on the same evidence and issues already decided by direct review with another petition for certiorari directed to this Court.” Brown v. Allen, 1953, 344 U.S. 443 at 447, 73 S.Ct. 397 at 402, 97 L. Ed. 469.
The Supreme Court reached the result after considering the exhaustion requirement in 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254 id. at note 2. In our case of Kennedy v. Sigler, 8 Cir., 1968, 397 F.2d 556, 559, we stated:
“ * * * issues litigated on direct appeal are not to be relitigated in a proceeding under the post-conviction statute.”
See, also, Smith v. Peyton, 4 Cir., 1968, 408 F.2d 1009. That court was confronted with a similar situation and said, at page 1010:
“Under the circumstances it seems fruitless to require the petitioner to make yet another trip to the Supreme Court of Appeals. It is settled that constitutional issues properly presented at trial and on direct appeal need not, under normal circumstances, be further presented to state courts. Edmondson v. Warden, 335 F.2d 608 (4th Cir. 1964); Grundler v. North Carolina, 283 F.2d 798 (4th Cir. 1960); Massey v. Peyton, No. 11,280 mem. dec., June 7, 1967. Assuming the correctness of petitioner’s allegations as to the procedures he followed, he has sufficiently complied with the exhaustion requirement.”
In our opinion, it would be a useless procedure to force the appellant here to comply with the provisions of the Supreme Court of Missouri Rule 27.26. This case is reversed and remanded to the District Court for a determination on the merits.
. On direct appeal appellant’s second issue read:
“The Court erred in over-ruling objections of appellant on the admissibility of the alleged written and oral statements of appellant because of the failure of the police officers to advise appellant of his rights to counsel prior to making any statement and the trial court’s failure to making [sic] a finding that the statements admitted in evidence were voluntarily made prior to their submission to the jury.”
Appellant cited, inter alia, Escobedo v. Illinois, 1964, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977, and Mallory v. United States, 1957, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479, in support of the contention.

Question: What is the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1