[JURIST] The California Supreme Court upheld state sentencing guidelines [opinion, PDF] on Monday, ruling that allowing judges to impose a discretionary range of sentences for various crimes did not give them too much power. The ruling follows the recent US Supreme Court holding in US v. Booker [JURIST report], which invalidated federal sentencing rules insofar as those had allowed judges to increase sentences based on facts not decided by a jury. A convicted child molester's sentence was upheld by the California court because they found that the trial judge didn't base the highest sentence on a factual determination he made. AP has more.