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:
David Perea ROMERO and Ronald Eugene Tickle, Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
Nos. 21686, 21686-A.
United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.
Feb. 12, 1969.
Thomas R. Sheridan (argued), of Simon, Sheridan, Murphy, Thornton & Medvene, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellants.
Jo Ann Dunne (argued), Asst. U. S. Atty., Wm. Matthew Byrne, Jr., U. S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.
Before CHAMBERS and ELY, Circuit Judges, and FOLEY, District Judge.
Honorable Roger D. Foley, District of Nevada, sitting by designation.
ROGER D. FOLEY, District Judge:
Appellant Romero was found guilty after a court trial on a two-count indictment charging violation of 21 U.S.C. § 174. Romero’s counsel specifies as error the following:
“1. Romero’s arrest without a warrant was illegal as it lacked the prerequisite probable cause. * * *
“2. Romero’s statements after his arrest are not admissible into evidence and should have been suppressed as said statements were obtained in violation of Romero’s constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and said statements were not voluntary and said statements were obtained during a period of ‘unnecessary delay’ under Rule 5(a) Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. * *
“3. There is insufficient evidence to support a conviction of Romero on count one of the indictment. * * *
“4. The search warrant is invalid and any evidence obtained pursuant to it should be suppressed as it does not set forth probable cause and it contains constitutionally inadmissible statements of Romero. * * *
“5. Romero’s statements at Tickle’s home were obtained in violation of his constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and they are not voluntary statements, and they were obtained during a period of unnecessary delay pursuant to Rule 5(a) Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. * * *
“6. There is insufficient evidence to support a conviction of Romero on count two of the indictment. * * ”
Appellant Tickle, who was named along with Romero in count two of the same indictment, was found guilty after a separate trial to the court. Tickle’s counsel alleges that the trial court committed three errors:
“1. There is insufficient evidence to convict Tickle on count two of the indictment. * * *
“2. The search warrant for his home fails to set forth probable cause and any evidence taken from his home should be suppressed. * * *
“3. The confession obtained from Tickle was obtained in violation of his constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. * * ”
The answer to each of the asserted errors turns entirely upon the facts as they appear from the record. There are no unsettled questions of law to be resolved on this appeal. For us, it is simply a matter of determining whether the district court properly applied well-settled principles of law to* the facts of this case.
We have carefully read the entire record of the proceedings below and studied the briefs of counsel filed with this court, and we are satisfied that all of the assignments of error are without merit. Throughout all of the proceedings before him, the district judge ruled correctly in all of the instances raised on this appeal and, in addition, fully protected the rights of the appellants and accorded them a fair trial. Not one of appellants’ nine specifications of error is worthy of discussion.
Affirmed.

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