The Corps of Royal Marines is an amphibious light infantry and one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. The marines can trace their origins back to the formation of the English Army's "Duke of York and Albany's maritime regiment of Foot" at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company on 28 October 1664; as a specialised and adaptable light infantry force, the Royal Marines are trained for rapid deployment worldwide and capable of dealing with a wide range of threats. The Royal Marines are organised into a light infantry brigade and a number of separate units, including 47 Commando Royal Marines, a company strength commitment to the Special Forces Support Group; the Corps operates in all environments and climates, though particular expertise and training is spent on amphibious warfare, arctic warfare, mountain warfare, expeditionary warfare, its commitment to the UK's Rapid Reaction Forces. Throughout its history, the Royal Marines have seen action in a number of major wars fighting beside the British Army – including the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, World War I and World War II.

In recent times the Corps has been deployed in expeditionary warfare roles such as the Falklands War, the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, the Kosovo War, the Sierra Leone Civil War, the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan. The Royal Marines have close international ties with allied marine forces the United States Marine Corps and the Netherlands Marine Corps. Today, the Royal Marines are an elite fighting force within the British Armed forces, having undergone many substantial changes over time; the Royal Marines traces its origins back to 28 October 1664 when at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company "the Duke of York and Albany's maritime regiment of foot" was first formed. On 5 April 1755, His Majesty's Marine Forces, fifty Companies in three Divisions, headquartered at Chatham and Plymouth, were formed by Order of Council under Admiralty control. All field officers were Royal Navy officers as the Royal Navy felt that the ranks of Marine field officers were honorary; this meant. It was not until 1771.

This attitude persisted well into the 1800s. During the rest of the 18th century, they served in numerous landings all over the world, the most famous being the landing at Belle Île on the Brittany coast in 1761, they served in the American War of Independence, notably in the Battle of Bunker Hill led by Major John Pitcairn. In 1788 a detachment of four companies of marines, under Major Robert Ross, accompanied the First Fleet to protect a new colony at Botany Bay. Due to an error the Fleet left Portsmouth without its main supply of ammunition, were not resupplied until the Fleet docked in Rio de Janeiro midway through the voyage. Scholars such as Christopher Warren and Seth Carus argue that the Marines deliberately spread smallpox among Australia's indigenous population in order to protect the settlement and respond to an overwhelming strategic threat; this incident does not appear in contemporaneous government records. Major Ross lost his papers during the shipwreck of HMS Sirius; some researchers associate the indigenous smallpox outbreak with other causes.

In 1802 at the instigation of Admiral the Earl St Vincent, they were titled the Royal Marines by King George III. The Royal Marines Artillery was formed as a separate unit in 1804 to man the artillery in bomb ketches; these had been manned by the Army's Royal Regiment of Artillery, but a lawsuit by a Royal Artillery officer resulted in a court decision that Army officers were not subject to Naval orders. As RMA uniforms were the blue of the Royal Regiment of Artillery they were nicknamed the "Blue Marines" and the infantry element, who wore the scarlet uniforms of the British infantry, became known as the "Red Marines" given the semi-derogatory nickname "Lobsters" by sailors. A fourth division of the Royal Marines, headquartered at Woolwich, was formed in 1805. During the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Marines participated in every notable naval battle on board the Royal Navy's ships and took part in multiple amphibious actions. Marines had a dual function aboard ships of the Royal Navy in this period.

In the Caribbean theatre volunteers from freed French slaves on Marie-Galante were used to form Sir Alexander Cochrane's first Corps of Colonial Marines. These men bolstered the ranks; this practice was repeated during the War of 1812, where escaped American slaves were formed into Cochrane's second Corps of Colonial Marines. These men were commanded by Royal Marines officers and fought alongside their regular Royal Marines counterparts at the Battle of Bladensburg. Throughout the war Royal Marines units raided up and down the east coast of America including up the Penobscot River and in the Chesapeake Bay, they fought in the Battle of New Orleans and helped capture Fort Bowyer in Mobile Bay in what was the last action of the war. In 1855 the infantry forces were renamed the Royal Marines Light Infantry. During the Crimean War in 1854 and 1855, three Royal Marines earned the Victoria Cross, two in the Crimea and one in the Baltic. In 1862 the name was altered to Royal Marine Light Infantry; the Royal Navy did not fight any other ships after 1850 and became in

Maxeys is a town in Oglethorpe County, United States. The population was 210 at the 2000 census; the Georgia General Assembly incorporated Maxeys as a town in 1907. The town is named after early settlers. Maxeys is located at 33°45′26″N 83°10′26″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 2.4 square miles, of which 2.4 square miles is land and 0.42% is water. As of the census of 2000, there were 210 people, 77 households, 62 families residing in the town; the population density was 87.8 people per square mile. There were 86 housing units at an average density of 36.0 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 92.38% White, 2.86% African American, 0.48% Native American, 2.86% from other races, 1.43% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.86% of the population. There were 77 households out of which 27.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 74.0% were married couples living together, 6.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 18.2% were non-families.

13.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.1% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.73 and the average family size was 3.02. In the town, the population was spread out with 23.8% under the age of 18, 8.6% from 18 to 24, 23.3% from 25 to 44, 22.9% from 45 to 64, 21.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.0 males. The median income for a household in the town was $53,125, the median income for a family was $58,750. Males had a median income of $31,406 versus $22,750 for females; the per capita income for the town was $16,227. About 12.9% of families and 13.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.5% of those under the age of eighteen and 6.3% of those sixty-five or over. The AT Brightwell Scholarship is a college scholarship available only to residents of Maxeys, will continue to pay college expenses through and including graduate school.

It is available to all unmarried or divorced students under 25 years of age who have lived within the defined city limits of Maxeys for at least one year prior to the effective day of scholarship. The parents of the student must remain in Maxeys for the duration of the scholarship; because this scholarship is so lucrative, many real estate companies in the area advertise homes as "AT Brightwell eligible."

United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, was the case in which the Supreme Court determined it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment for a roving patrol car to stop a vehicle on the basis of the driver appearing to be of Mexican descent. A roving patrol car must have articulable facts that allow for an officer to have a reasonable suspicion that the person is carrying illegal aliens beyond their ethnicity; the Court handed down a 9-0 decision. As part of normal procedure for the United States Border Patrol in Southern California there was a permanent traffic checkpoint set up Interstate 5 just outside San Clemente, California. On March 11, 1973, the checkpoint had been closed because of inclement weather so the officers sat on the side of the highway in their vehicle with their headlights facing northbound traffic, they pursued a vehicle with three occupants in it, stating that their only reason for pursuing the vehicle was because of the occupant's apparent Mexican ethnicity. The officers questioned Felix Humberto Brignoni-Ponce and his two passengers about their citizenship and discovered that Brignoni-Ponce's two passengers had entered the country illegally.

The officers proceeded to arrest the three individuals. The driver was charged with two counts of knowingly transporting illegal immigrants, a violation of § 274 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 66 Stat. 228 and the two passengers were arrested for entering the country illegally. At the trial for the defendant, he argued that the two passengers should not have to testify because their statements were the result of an illegal seizure, but his motion was denied; the two passengers testified and the defendant was found guilty of both counts. The defendant appealed the decision saying that because the stop was based on the basis of his ethnicity, it was a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights; the Fourth Amendment protects a person from unreasonable search and seizures. The Border Patrol derived its power to stop the individuals from two separate laws; the first was Section 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1357, authorizes any officer or employee of the Immigration and Naturalization Service without a warrant, "to interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States."

The second was Section 287 of the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1357, which authorizes agents, without a warrant, to search cars traveling near the border that are suspected to have or are transporting persons trying to enter the country illegally. From this, they believe that their actions were lawful if an act of Congress cannot supersede the Constitution; the Court held a search and seizure based on the "appearance of Mexican ancestry" violates the Fourth Amendment. Without a reasonable suspicion generated by articulable facts, a police search is illegal. According to the precedent set in Terry v. Ohio and Adams v. Williams, under appropriate circumstances, a roving patrol may perform a limited search and seizure without having probable cause to arrest the person; these circumstances include information that the person may have drugs or weapons, a visual scan of the person’s vehicle reveals something suspicious or as in this case a visual reason to believe that the person is carrying illegal aliens into the country.

Valid examples of what constitutes as suspicion of carrying illegal aliens include driving a station wagon with fold down seats or spare tires removed to conceal aliens, having a low riding vehicle, having an overly packed vehicle, or driving erratically. The officer's knowledge of the area and training in dealing with illegal aliens dictates the decision to pursue a search. Thus, an officer must have one of these articulable facts in order stop someone and question their citizenship. However, in this case the defendants were stopped for one reason: on the basis of their appeared Mexican ancestry; the court concluded. The lack of articulable facts to generate suspicion that the car was carrying illegal aliens meant that this search was illegal. There are millions of people living in the area around San Diego that are naturalized and native-born of Mexico and "even in the border area, a small proportion of them are aliens." It is unreasonable to assume that any person who appears Mexican is an illegal alien or could be transporting illegal aliens.

To allow such unrestricted roving patrol stops would be to subject all residents of the border area to unreasonable searches and seizures just because of their ethnicity, therefore the stop of the defendant was a violation of the Fourth Amendment and the charges were dropped. Despite being freed from the charges in this case, Brignoni-Ponce was arrested for carrying illegal aliens five times in fifteen years, spending over three years in jail for his crimes, his last-known arrest was on February 25, 1981, six years after his Supreme Court case was decided, at a San Clemente checkpoint, for smuggling thirteen illegal aliens. Brignoni-Ponce was born in Puerto Rico, not of Mexican descent as suspected in his initial stop by the Border Patrol, is an American citizen; this case’s effects on Border Patrol Agents have been compared to the effects the Miranda decision had on attorneys and prosecutors. Bernstein, Steven K.. "Fourth Amendment—Using the Drug Courier Profile to Fight the War on Drugs". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

80: 996–1017. Doi:10.2307/1143688. JSTOR 1143688. Johnson, Kevin R.. "How Racial Profiling in America Became the'Law of the Land': United States v. Brignoni-Ponce and Whren v. United States and the Need for Rebellious Lawyering". Georgetown Law Journal. 98