Brych

This case confronts us with the question whether an appellate court should entertain an appeal from a criminal conviction where the defendant has severed all contact with his attorneys and voluntarily placed himself beyond the jurisdiction of the California courts. Under the unusual circumstances of the present case, we hold the appeal should be dismissed.

As the result of administering medical treatment to several individuals in 1980, appellant was convicted of conspiracy and numerous other offenses involving grand theft, practicing medicine without a license, and fraudulently providing cancer treatment. He was sentenced to six years in prison, has completed that sentence, and is not under parole supervision. Appellant resides outside the United States, although his exact whereabouts are unknown to us, to his counsel, and to respondent.

Appellant’s numerous assignments of error involve primarily (1) evidentiary rulings by the trial court. In addition, appellant contends (2) a jury instruction based on Health and Safety Code section 1707 constituted an unconstitutional mandatory presumption; (3) Business and Professions Code sections 2052 and 2053 are overbroad and…