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. Ralph Michael LEPISCOPO, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 71-1379.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
April 18, 1972.
Ralph Michael Lepiscopo, pro se.
Robert J. Roth, U. S. Atty., and Richard L. Meyer, Asst. U. S. Atty., on brief, for plaintiff-appellee.
Before LEWIS, Chief Judge, DOYLE, Circuit Judge, and WINNER, District Judge.
PER CURIAM.
The appellant Lepiscopo was tried before a jury in the District Court for the District of Kansas and found guilty of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1792, conveying from place to place within a United States penitentiary a weapon designed to kill, injure or disable any officer, agent, employee or inmate. The appellant was confined in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas at the time of the offense. The weapon involved was a knife made from a 12-inch piece of %-inch steel sharpened to a point on one end and wrapped with string and tape for a grip at the opposite end, clearly a weapon within the meaning of the statute.
Throughout the proceedings in this case the appellant conducted his own defense. He steadfastly refused the assistance of counsel even though the trial judge, over appellant’s objection, had appointed “stand-by” counsel to provide assistance if appellant requested it. The appellant’s defense to the charge was that he was insane at the time of the offense. The defense of insanity is not a simple one, and it is apparent from the record that the appellant needed an attorney. But as the trial judge recognized, an accused cannot be forced to accept an attorney’s services even when appointed by the court. It is also apparent from the record that much of the appellant’s conduct at the trial was intended to harass both court and counsel, and generally disrupt the judicial process. The trial judge is to be commended for his patience and diplomacy in handling a difficult situation.
In his appeal pro se the appellant claims that he was denied his right to compulsory process. He requested several witnesses, five of these were denied by the trial judge. Two of those denied were expert witnesses from Atlanta, Georgia, where the appellant had been imprisoned prior to transfer to Leavenworth; the remainder were inmates at other federal prisons. Rule 17(b) Fed.R.Crim.P. provides that witnesses will be subpoenaed at government expense “upon a satisfactory showing that the defendant is financially unable to pay the fees of the witness and that the presence of the witness is necessary to an adequate defense.” A motion to have a witness produced at government expense is addressed to the sound discretion of the court and is not an absolute right. United States v. Mason, 10 Cir., 440 F.2d 1293; Speers v. United States, 10 Cir., 387 F.2d 698, cert. denied, 391 U.S. 956, 88 S.Ct. 1864, 20 L.Ed.2d 871. These witnesses were to testify on the insanity issue. None of them had seen or talked to the defendant for over a year prior to the offense. The court justifiably ruled that their testimony was not necessary to an adequate defense. There was no abuse of discretion by the trial judge.
The appellant complains on appeal that he was not allowed by the trial judge to examine a certain report in possession of the F.B.I. agent who testified at the trial. He claims this was a violation of his rights under the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500. The Jencks Act provides that after a witness has testified on direct examination, the government must produce any written statement of the witness in its possession “which relates to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified.” The “statement” that appellant requested was an F.B.I. report concerning the indictment and arraignment of appellant. The report did not relate to anything in the witness testimony on direct examination nor does it appear to be a producible “statement” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e).
The appellant argues for reversal on the grounds that the prosecuting attorney, in his closing argument commented on the appellant’s failure to testify. Such a comment is reversible error. United States v. Nolan, 10 Cir., 416 F.2d 588. But the prosecutor’s comment was not of that type. After summarizing and reviewing to the jury the government's evidence, the prosecutor commented, “All of this evidence is uncontradicted.” It is permissible for the prosecutor to call the jury’s attention to the fact that the evidence against the defendant is uncontradicted, especially when the facts in issue could have been controverted by persons other than the defendant. Doty v. United States, 10 Cir., 416 F.2d 887.
The appellant complains that the trial judge gave an erroneous instruction on insanity. There is no merit whatsoever to this contention as the trial judge gave the instruction approved by this court in Wion v. United States, 10 Cir., 325 F.2d 420.
The appellant concludes with the generalization that he did not receive a fair trial. The record does not support this contention.
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