What is the test for making a record at a criminal trial?

First, a reviewing court may indeed consider a claim raising a pure question of law on undisputed facts. (People v. Yeoman (2003) 31 Cal.4th 93, 118.) But defendant does not ask us to review a pure question of law based on undisputed facts. Rather, he requests a factual determination of his alleged inability to pay based on a record that contains nothing more than his reliance on appointed counsel at trial. Moreover, a reviewing court may excuse the failure "to raise an issue at trial where an objection would have been futile or wholly unsupported by substantive law then in existence." (People v. Welch (1993) 5 Cal.4th 228, 237.) But again, defendant has not shown that an objection would have been futile below. While the fees and fine challenged here were mandatory assessments, nothing in the record of the sentencing hearing indicates that defendant would have been foreclosed from making the same request that the defendant in Dueas made in the face of those same mandatory assessments. Defendant plainly could have made a record had his ability to pay actually been an issue.