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:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jerry Alton BYERS, Robert Hugh Donahoe, Ronald Ray Versteeg, David Robert Poad, and Leonard Earl Higginson, Jr., Defendants-Appellants.
No. 78-5762
Summary Calendar.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Aug. 13, 1979.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 7,1979.
Frank Louderback, St. Petersburg, Fla., for Byers, Donahoe, Versteeg and Higgin-son.
James R. Dirmann, Sarasota, Fla., for Poad.
Judy S. Rice, Asst. U. S. Atty., Tampa, Fla., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before AINSWORTH, CLARK and VANCE, Circuit Judges.
Rule 18, 5 Cir.; see Isbell Enterprises, Inc. v. Citizens Casualty Co. of New York et al., 5 Cir., 1970, 431 F.2d 409, Part I.
CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge:
On May 13, 1978 the lookout for the Coast Guard Cutter STEADFAST saw several persons jumping from a white cabin cruiser to a red and white Magnum speedboat. The Magnum then sped off in a northeasterly direction, with the persons on board the Magnum flinging into the water bales of a substance later found to be marijuana. A party from the STEADFAST boarded the cabin cruiser and found it to be abandoned. A further search disclosed that forty-nine bales of marijuana and various personal effects remained on board. Thirty-eight bales of marijuana were found floating in the water. Two hours later, a customs plane spotted a Magnum boat dead in the water approximately ten miles to the northeast. The party from the STEADFAST also boarded the Magnum boat, but it too had been abandoned. No marijuana was found on board. When the STEADFAST came upon a shrimp boat approximately two hours later, the captain of the shrimp boat identified five men on the boat as persons he had picked up from the abandoned Magnum. These five persons, David Robert Poad, Leonard Earl Higginson, Jr., Ronald Ray Versteeg, Terry Alton Byers, and Robert Hugh Donahoe, were arrested, charged with conspiracy to possess and import marijuana with the intent to distribute, and were convicted. Presenting a number of different contentions, the alleged conspirators appeal. We affirm.
Defendants challenge the Coast Guard’s searches of both the cabin cruiser and the Magnum. Since the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures is personal in nature, each defendant must show that the disputed search and seizure “has infringed an interest of the defendant which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect.” Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 140, 99 S.Ct. 421, 429, 58 L.Ed.2d 387, 399 (1978). Thus, each defendant must show that he has standing to challenge the searches. In order to establish standing a defendant must establish either that he had a “legitimate expectation of privacy” in the premises searched, Id. at 143, 99 S.Ct. at 430, 58 L.Ed.2d at 401, or that possession of the seized item at the time of seizure is an essential element of the offense charged, Id. at 135, 99 S.Ct. at 426, 58 L.Ed.2d at 395. No defendant met either requirement here. They were not on board either of the boats during the searches nor have they established any legitimate expectation of privacy with regard to the interiors of either of the abandoned boats. Possession of the personal articles seized is obviously not an essential element of the crimes with which defendants were charged, though the articles were important evidence in connecting defendants with criminal conduct. Similarly, possession of marijuana at the time of the seizure is not an essential element of the crimes of conspiring to possess marijuana with the intent to distribute it, United States v. Archbold-Newball, 554 F.2d 665, 678-79 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1000, 98 S.Ct. 644, 54 L.Ed.2d 496 (1978), or of conspiring to import marijuana with the intent to distribute it, United States v. Reyes, 595 F.2d 275, 279-280 (5th Cir. 1979). Thus, defendants have no standing to challenge the validity of the searches and seizures.
All defendants challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to convict them. This contention is without merit; the evidence against them was overwhelming. In addition to the evidence placing them near the scene of the crime, Poad’s wallet, identification belonging to Higginson, and a photograph of three of the alleged conspirators were all found on board the cabin cruiser. A duffle bag belonging to Donahoe was found on the Magnum boat. The prosecution established that Poad had access to the cabin cruiser and its keys. This evidence and the remaining evidence presented at trial was clearly sufficient to convict.
Byers, Versteeg and Donahoe assert that Poad’s wallet and Higginson’s identification should have been excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 since the probative value of the evidence was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to them. We reject this contention. The district judge acted well within the ambit of his discretion under Rule 403 in admitting the challenged evidence.
During the trial, the district judge admitted a certified copy of an information filed in Florida state court charging Versteeg with possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute it. The information also contained a notarized statement by the trial judge indicating that Versteeg was found guilty at a non-jury trial. Donahoe, Versteeg, Byers, and Higginson contend that the documents should not have been admitted since, under Florida law, the document was not the best evidence of a previous conviction. However, the best evidence rule is inapplicable to the admission of evidence concerning prior offenses. United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898, 913 (5th Cir. 1978) (en banc). Under Beechum, the question of whether a defendant actually committed a prior extrinsic offense is a jury question, unless the judge becomes convinced that the jury could not reasonably find that the defendant committed the alleged prior offense. Id. Viewed under that standard, the evidence offered to establish that Versteeg committed the prior offense was clearly sufficient to create a jury issue.
Defendants next contend that the evidence concerning the prior offense should have been excluded since its prejudicial effect outweighed any proper benefit to the prosecution. Beechum, 582 F.2d at 911, established a two-step test for determining the admissibility of extrinsic acts evidence:
First, it must be determined that the extrinsic offense evidence is relevant to an issue other than the defendant’s character. Second, the evidence must possess probative value that is not substantially outweighed by its undue prejudice and must meet the other requirements of Rule 403.
The extrinsic act evidence here was relevant to a. disputed issue in the case other than Versteeg’s character — whether he intended to distribute the marijuana. With regard to the second step in the Beechum analysis, we find that the district court did not abuse his discretion under Rule 403 in deciding that the prejudice arising from the evidence did not substantially outweigh its probative value. Beechum indicated that the probative value of an extrinsic offense depends, in part, upon similarity to the charged offense and the length of time between the offenses. 582 F.2d at 915. Here, the elements of the extrinsic offense and the charged offense were virtually identical, and the extrinsic offense occurred slightly more than a month before the charged offense.
The government alleged in the indictment that one of the conspirators had committed an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy by purchasing a Loran navigation unit. Defendants contend that there was a fatal variance between this portion of the indictment and the proof at trial since the prosecution failed to show that any of the defendants purchased the unit. We reject this argument. At trial it was shown that the Coast Guard removed a Loran unit from the cabin cruiser, that the unit was not on board the vessel when the owner last saw it, that a Loran had been sold to a person from Castaway Boats, that one of the items found in the search of the boats was a business card from Castaway Boats with the name of one of the conspirators on it, and that the persons on board both the cabin cruiser and the Magnum had used the Loran for navigational purposes. Although the Loran salesman could not identify one of the conspirators as the purchaser of the Loran unit, sufficient evidence existed for the jury to find that the overt act was proven.
We have examined the remainder of the defendants’ allegations and find them to be meritless.
AFFIRMED.

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