Keith Sparks was an Associate Justice on the Court of Appeal for the Third District in Sacramento. He was born in 1933 and grew up in Placer County, California. He attended Lincoln High School and then went to the University of California at Berkeley, and then later he went to Boalt Hall at Cal as well. He majored in political science and minored in history at Berkeley and was subject to the draft. He commuted from Placer County to the Third Appellate District downtown and listened to books on tape while he drove.