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. Alex JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 15119.
United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.
Feb. 21, 1963.
Lawrence W. Massey, Detroit, Mich., for appellant.
Paul J. Komives, Detroit, Mich. (Lawrence Gubow, U. S. Atty., Detroit, Mich., on the brief), for appellee.
Before CECIL, Chief Judge, BOYD, District Judge, and DARR, Senior District Judge.
ORDER.
The appeal is from a judgment based on a jury verdict of guilty on a four count indictment charging in two counts the unlawful sale of narcotics and in two counts the unlawful possession of narcotics. A sentence of six years on each count was administered, the sentences to run concurrently.
As no appendix was made or filed, the entire transcript has been read and considered.
To reverse the judgment the appellant presents three questions, but actually there are only two: One charges the District Judge with error in not sustaining appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal and the other charges error in the admission of evidence of the Narcotic Agent in identifying the appellant by his voice.
Only two witnesses on the facts were introduced and these by the Government. One was a person who had dealt in narcotics and was an addict, who testified to facts plainly implicating the appellant with the unlawful transactions, to-wit, the possession and sale of narcotics on July 8, 1961 and possession and sale of narcotics on July 9, 1961. This witness was solidly corroborated by the testimony of a United States Narcotic Agent.
There was substantial evidence to submit to the jury and the District Judge was correct in denying appellant’s motion for a judgment of acquittal.
The identification of the voice of the appellant by the Narcotic Agent was after he had heard the voice coming from a radio transmitter to a radio receiver. The agent said that the voice was very distinctive and he unhesitatingly identified the voice as being appellant’s after he heard appellant’s voice subsequent to the reception by radio.
The District Judge made no error in admitting this testimony for the consideration of the jury.
It is noted that the only two witnesses who testified on the question of guilt or innocence were offered by the Government and that the appellant presented no proof of his innocence or explanation for the possession of narcotics.
The record indicates a fair trial carefully conducted by the District Judge, who gave clear and proper instructions to the jury.
Therefore, it is ORDERED and ADJUDGED that the judgment of the District Court is in all things 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