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 "the federal government, its agencies, and officials". 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. Joseph Michael LINCOLN, a/k/a Mohammed Ali Ballagh Omer, Appellant.
No. 90-5172MN.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted Nov. 16, 1990.
Decided Feb. 6, 1991.
Daniel M. Scott, Minneapolis, Minn., for appellant.
Henry J. Shea, Minneapolis, Minn., for appellee.
Before ARNOLD and MAGILL, Circuit Judges, and BENSON, Senior District Judge.
The Honorable Paul Benson, Senior United States District Judge for the District of North Dakota.
ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
Joseph Lincoln appeals his convictions for arson and mail fraud. A jury found that he burned down his grocery store and then tried to collect on his insurance. The District Court sentenced Lincoln to ten years in jail for the arson and a year and nine months in jail for the mail fraud. Judge Murphy decided that the sentences should run consecutively. Lincoln was also fined $10,000 and ordered to make around $37,000 in restitution to his landlord and his landlord’s insurance company. Lincoln assigns two errors on appeal. He challenges a jury instruction on his aiding and abetting the arson, arguing that it was not grounded in the indictment, that he was unfairly surprised by it, and that it was not supported by the evidence. He also challenges his sentence. Lincoln contends that because his two criminal acts were part of one scheme, his sentences should have been concurrent instead of consecutive. We affirm the appellant’s convictions and sentence.
Early one morning in August of 1987, someone set fire to Lincoln’s Market — a neighborhood grocery store. Joseph Lincoln is the Lincoln of Lincoln’s Market. He was vacationing with his family in Manka-to, Minnesota, when the fire occurred. Soon thereafter, Lincoln filed a claim by mail with his insurance company for the loss of his grocery store’s contents. It does not appear from the record that his claim was ever paid. It was clear from the beginning that this was a case of arson. Gasoline had been spread around the building, and the fumes were ignited by the pilot light of the hot-water heater. The Market's contents were destroyed and the building damaged. Suspicion centered on Lincoln. He was indicted, pleaded not guilty, and a jury trial followed. Lincoln was convicted of both arson and mail fraud, and has now taken this appeal.
Lincoln first urges that the District Court erred in submitting an aiding-and-abetting instruction to his jury. The indictment charges Lincoln with actually burning down the grocery store himself. The appellant says all the government's proof and its theory of the case supported that explanation. At the last moment, however, and to his disadvantage, the government supposedly hedged its bet by convincing the District Court to instruct the jury on an alternative theory of guilt: Lincoln could be convicted if he participated in the arson in any way. The appellant seeks a new trial on this basis.
The government rightly notes, and Lincoln eventually concedes, that the law does not require amending an indictment to instruct a jury (or indeed convict a defendant) on the lesser offense of aiding and abetting the principal crime charged. See, e.g., United States v. Frye, 548 F.2d 765, 767 n. 4 (8th Cir.1977) (citing cases). The appellant's allegations of a constructively amended indictment, then, boil down to two different allegations of error: he found out about the aiding-and-abetting instruction so late in the day that his defense was harmed, and the evidence simply did not support the instruction.
We are unconvinced that the appellant deserves a new trial on this basis. The record demonstrates Lincoln had clear notice of the instruction before his trial began, and that ample evidence presented during the trial justified the instruction. A week before trial Lincoln received the government's proposed jury instructions-including an aiding-and-abetting instruction. In his opening statement the United States Attorney contended that Lincoln "actively participated in" and "orchestrated" the arson; he did not claim that the evidence would prove Lincoln started the fire. T. 1-81, 84. The ultimate decision regarding what role, if any, Lincoln actually played in the arson was left in the jury's hands. Moreover, the evidence supported alternative interpretations of that role. At least one government witness placed Lincoln at the crime scene. Other witnesses (including some defense witnesses) testified they saw several individuals-none of whom was Lincoln-around the Market before the fire erupted. Most importantly, gasoline cans found at the burned-out store were traced to a K-Mart store in Mankato, Minnesota. A man resembling Lincoln purchased similar cans there the day before the fire. In sum, the evidence supported a reasonable conclusion that Lincoln at least helped in the arson. This evidentiary foundation, and the fact that the defense had no good legal reason to be surprised by this theory of Lincoln's guilt, makes the aiding- and-abetting instruction proper.
Lincoln next argues that the District Court abused its discretion at sentencing. He does not challenge either his ten-year sentence for arson or his twenty-one month sentence for mail fraud. Rather, Lincoln presses us to conclude that his two sentences should be served concurrently instead of consecutively. The appellant's claim is complicated by the timing of his crimes. He burned down his store before the effective date of the federal Sentencing Guidelines, but he mailed his fraudulent insurance claim after the Guidelines took effect. If both of Lincoln's crimes had been pre-Guidelines offenses, as he concedes, he would not have much of an argument here; the choice between consecutive and concurrent sentences, like almost all aspects of the sentence, was within the sentencing court's discretion. United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 446-47, 92 S.Ct. 589, 591-92, 30 L.Ed.2d 592 (1972). If both Lincoln's crimes were Guidelines offenses, he might have a stronger claim; the Guidelines carefully channel all sentencing discretion, including whether to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences for related crimes. U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2. Lin-coin’s case has one foot in each of these sentencing worlds, and we must decide what difference that makes.
We conclude that the posture of this case does not determine Lincoln’s sentence. We are guided to our decision by the well-reasoned opinions of two of our sister circuit courts which have already faced this straddle situation. See United States v. Watford, 894 F.2d 665 (4th Cir.1990) (Wilkins, J.); United States v. Garcia, 903 F.2d 1022 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 111 S.Ct. 364, 112 L.Ed.2d 327 (1990). The upshot of these cases is that while district courts may be guided in their decision by the Sentencing Guidelines, it is not an abuse of discretion to impose consecutive sentences when a defendant stands convicted of related pre-Guidelines and Guidelines offenses — even if the Guidelines would mandate concurrent sentences if both offenses were subject to them.
Both Watford and Garcia affirmed consecutive sentences that would have been concurrent under the Guidelines. We adopt their reasoning insofar as it applies to this case. Whether to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences was within Judge Murphy’s informed discretion. At sentencing she stated she had considered all the evidence at trial, the pre-sentence report, the nature of Lincoln’s crimes, and his potential victims. That she did not consider or follow the Guidelines in deciding to impose consecutive sentences on Lincoln does not impair her deliberations. We affirm her decision.
The result in this case would probably not change even if both of Lincoln’s crimes were within reach of the Sentencing Guidelines. We are not persuaded that his crimes are so closely related as to deserve concurrent sentences. They are surely parts of the same scheme. But the appellant's arson and mail fraud had different potential victims: the people who lived above the grocery store and the insurance company. The different harms Lincoln could have inflicted probably justify consecutive sentences even under the current regime. See U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2.
The appellant’s convictions and sentence are
Affirmed
. The Honorable Diana E. Murphy, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officialss"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0