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:
Enoch MCQUEEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John P. WHITLEY, Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 92-4815.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
April 23, 1993.
Rehearing Denied May 19, 1993.
See also 386 So.2d 364.
Enoch McQueen, pro se.
Before JOHNSON, SMITH, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.
JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:
I.
Enoch McQueen was convicted of simple burglary in 1970 and served his nine-year sentence. In 1979, he was convicted of aggravated burglary, and the trial court enhanced his sentence based upon the 1970 conviction. McQueen challenges his sentence in the 1979 conviction, alleging it was improperly enhanced by the 1970 conviction.
McQueen previously attacked his 1979 conviction in a habeas corpus proceeding, alleging several constitutional errors. We affirmed the district court’s dismissal of that petition. McQueen v. Blackburn, 755 F.2d 1174 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 852, 106 S.Ct. 152, 88 L.Ed.2d 125 (1985). Later, McQueen filed a second habeas petition, seeking relief from his 1979 sentence because his 1970 conviction, which was used to enhance the 1979 sentence, allegedly was tainted by an unconstitutional jury instruction. We affirmed the district court’s dismissal of this second petition, holding that McQueen had not exhausted his state remedies. McQueen v. Blackburn, 833 F.2d 1008 (5th Cir.1987).
McQueen now has exhausted his state remedies and challenges the enhancement of his 1979 sentence by his 1970 conviction. The district court sua sponte ordered McQueen to file a response under rule 9 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Proceedings explaining why his petition should not be dismissed as an abuse of the writ. McQueen responded, and the district court dismissed his petition for abuse of the writ. The district court granted McQueen a certificate of probable cause to appeal.
II.
The district-court raised abuse of the writ sua sponte, as the court lawfully may do. United States v. Flores, 981 F.2d 231, 236 n. 9 (5th Cir.1993); Woods v. Whitley, 933 F.2d 321, 323 n. 3 (5th Cir.1991) (citing cases). McQueen then had the burden of showing cause and prejudice. Saahir v. Collins, 956 F.2d 115, 118 (5th Cir.1992) (citing McCleskey v. Zant, — U.S. -, -, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 1474, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991)). To show cause, the petitioner must prove that some objective factor external to the defense prevented him from raising the claim earlier. Saahir, 956 F.2d at 118. These factors include interference by government officials or the reasonable unavailability of the factual or legal basis for a claim. Id.
Before deciding whether McQueen has proven adequate cause, we must digress. McQueen alleges that the district court erred in even requiring him to show cause, as he has not ever challenged the 1970 conviction in a federal habeas petition. McQueen’s first habeas petition challenged his 1979 conviction, while his second petition was dismissed without prejudice. The second petition, like the one before us, alleges that McQueen’s 1979 sentence should not have been enhanced by his prior conviction, as he asserts that his 1970 conviction was unconstitutional. In other words, McQueen purports to challenge his 1970 conviction here, while his first petition challenged his 1979 conviction.
We agree with McQueen that the second petition has no bearing on this issue. That petition was dismissed without prejudice for failure to exhaust state remedies.
The question then becomes whether McQueen’s third petition challenges his 1970 conviction or his 1979 conviction. McQueen argues he has not abused the writ as a matter of law because his current petition challenges his 1970 conviction, while his first petition challenged his 1979 conviction. We disagree.
A prisoner challenging an earlier conviction used to enhance a conviction for which the prisoner is presently incarcerated meets the jurisdictional “in custody” requirement, see Maleng v. Cook, 490 U.S. 488, 109 S.Ct. 1923, 104 L.Ed.2d 540 (1989) (per curiam), because such a petition is challenging the sentence for the later conviction as enhanced by the earlier conviction, not the earlier conviction itself. Here, McQueen challenges his 1979 sentence on the ground that the sentence was enhanced by an earlier allegedly unconstitutional conviction. In other words, the petition seeks relief from the 1979 sentence; the 1970 conviction provides the alleged error justifying such relief. Because McQueen’s third petition, like his first, implicates the 1979 offense, his third petition constitutes an abuse of the writ, absent cause and prejudice. The fact that the first petition assailed McQueen’s 1979 conviction, while the third petition attacks his 1979 sentence, is of no moment, as a petition cannot present fragmented, successive petitions by challenging a conviction and its consequent sentence seriatim.
We now address the question of cause. The district court gave petitioner a chance to offer an explanation as to why he did not raise his claim in his first application. His only response was that his second application was dismissed without prejudice. As we conclude above, however, the issues raised in the third petition could have been raised in the first petition, making the second petition irrelevant. Because McQueen has not offered any showing of cause, the district court properly dismissed McQueen’s petition for abuse of the writ, and its judgment is AFFIRMED.
. There is no evidence in the record of a prior habeas attack on the 1970 conviction.
. The jury instruction apparently was unconstitutional, as the Louisiana Supreme Court subsequently has held. See State v. Searle, 339 So.2d 1194 (La. 1976). The Louisiana courts, however, have refused to apply Searle retroactively. See State v. Spears, 363 So.2d 479 (La.1978).

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