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:
KINARD v. UNITED STATES.
No. 7153.
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Decided Nov. 28, 1938.
Juan R. Quijano and Eugenio M. Fonbuena, both of Washington, D. C., for appellant.
David A. Pine, U. S. Atty., and Roger Robb and John W. Fihelly, Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Washington, D. C.
Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and MILLER and VINSON, Associate Justices.
MILLER, Associate Justice.
Appellant has been twice convicted of murder in the first degree on account of the killing of his wife. Judgment upon the first verdict was reversed by this court on an earlier appeal. There is now presented to us, on appeal from the second judgment, the single question whether the court erred in charging the jury as follows:
“Now, some statements made by the defendant himself have been presented in this case. Some of these statements were not made in any judicial hearing, and they were offered on the theory of confession, those statements tending to show the defendant’s guilt of some form of criminal homicide. If you find they were freely and voluntarily made, then a confession is always a piece of evidence of great importance.”
No objection was made, or exception taken, to the charge as given and the question is raised for the first time on this appeal. In exceptional circumstances the court may, on its own motion and in the exercise of a sound discretion, “notice errors to which no exception has been taken, if the errors are obvious, or if they otherwise seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” But the purpose of such an exercise of discretion is to insure justice, not to thwart it. This is a criminal case in which the death penalty has been imposed and we have given careful consideration to the assignments of error.
Appellant contends that the charge as given was erroneous because the court improperly emphasized evidence unfavorable to him; because it failed to tell the jury that the “statement or confession” also tended to show that he killed his wife in self-defense; and because it failed to call to the attention of the jury other portions of the evidence and confession which tended to show self-defense. However, an examination of the entire charge reveals that the court instructed the jury properly. Its purpose in giving that portion of the charge to which objection is now made was to explain the effect of a confession, the conditions under which it may be considered, and the weight to be given to it. It could have served no useful purpose for the court to interject comments concerning self-defense at that point in its charge, and the effect of so doing would have been merely to confuse the jury. In other parts of its charge the court gave full and accurate instructions concerning self-defense, including all requests for instruction upon that subject offered by appellant.
The court, in its charge, told the members of the jury that it was not expressing any view concerning the evidence; that its references to the evidence were solely for the purpose of explaining legal principles; and repeatedly admonished them that they were the sole judges of the credibility and the weight of the evidence.
It is axiomatic that the charge to the jury must be considered as a whole. So considered, in the present case, appellant’s assignments of error are entirely lacking in merit. In our opinion he has had a fair and impartial trial.
• Affirmed.
Kinard v. United States, 68 App.D.C. 250, 96 F.2d 522.
United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160, 56 S.Ct. 391, 392, 80 L.Ed. 555. See also, Crawford v. United States, 212 U.S. 183, 194, 29 S.Ct. 260, 53 L.Ed. 465, 15 Ann.Cas. 392; Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448, 450, 47 S.Ct. 135, 71 L.Ed. 345; Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 362, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L.Ed. 793, 19 Ann.Cas. 705; Clyatt v. United States, 197 U.S. 207, 221-222, 25 S.Ct. 429, 49 L.Ed. 726; Kinard v. United States, 68 App.D.C. 250, 96 F.2d 522, 526. Cf. Bailey v. Block, 67 App. D.C. 57, 89 F.2d 801.
Morris v. United States, 61 App.D.C. 257, 258, 61 F.2d 520, 521, certiorari denied, 287 U.S. 597, 53 S.Ct. 22, 77 L.Ed. 520. See also, Webster y. United States, 8 Cir., 59 F.2d 583, 587, certiorari denied, 287 U.S. 629, 53 S.Ct. 81, 77 L.Ed. 545; Stassi v. United States, 8 Cir., 50 F.2d 526.
Schaefer v. United States, 251 U.S. 466, 471, 40 S.Ct. 259, 64 L.Ed. 360; Sullivan v. District of Columbia, 20 App.D.C. 29, 37; Lehman v. District of Columbia, 19 App.D.C. 217, 232, 236.

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