Can a defendant challenge the sufficiency of evidence to support a judgment for the first time on appeal?

Defendant also claims there is insufficient evidence to support the order. Parties are generally permitted to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support a judgment for the first time on appeal because they "necessarily objected" to the sufficiency of the evidence by "contesting [it] at trial." (McCullough, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 596, citing People v. Gibson (1994) 27 Cal.App.4th 1466, 1468-1469 [reasoning that a challenge to the sufficiency of evidence to support a restitution fine to which the defendant did not object is not akin to a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction to which the defendant necessarily objected by entering a plea of not guilty and contesting the issue at trial].) Where the defendant did not contest the fee at the trial

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level, there is no basis on which to find that he "necessarily objected" to the sufficiency of the evidence.

Nor does the issue raise a pure question of law that we might review for the first time on appeal. A court's imposition of an attorney fee order based on the ability to pay is confined to factual determinations, like the booking fee imposed in McCullough. (McCullough, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 597.) A defendant's ability to pay a fee does not present a question of law and a defendant may not transform a factual claim into a legal one by asserting the record's deficiency as a legal error. (Ibid., citing People v. Forshay (1995) 39 Cal.App.4th 686, 689-690.)