Does the Attorney General have any grounds to deny a defendant's ability to pay his attorney fees?

Second, this is not a case where the defendant has simply challenged the court's factual findings regarding his ability to pay without having done so in the trial court. Instead, Beltran is essentially asserting there was no basis to find he had the ability to pay the reimbursement order because the court never held a hearing on the issue. As the Attorney General admits, Beltran's "presentence probation report does not recommend an attorney fees award, nor does it contain anything suggesting [Beltran's] financial capability to pay attorney fees, the value of his assets, or his employment prospects. . . . Moreover the trial court did not either expressly or implicitly find whether appellant had the ability to pay." Because the court never held a hearing on Beltran's ability to pay, and the record contains no independent evidence of his ability to do so, his claim effectively challenges the sufficiency of the evidence underlying the court's decision to impose reimbursement. Generally, the "'contention'" that a factual finding "is not supported by substantial evidence . . . is an obvious exception'" to the standard rule of forfeiture. (People v. Butler (2003) 31 Cal.4th 1119, 1126.)