OPINION
A jury fоund April Michelle Layland to be guilty of the misdemeanor offense of driving while intoxicated. The trial court assessed punishment at 180 days in jail, probated for eighteen months, and a $500 fíne. In two points of error, Layland appeals the pre-trial ruling on her motion to suppress and challenges the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting her conviction. For reasons that follow, we аffirm the trial court’s judgment.
Point of error one contends the trial court erred when it overruled her motion to suppress statements made by the defendant. We apply a bifurcated standard of reviеw to a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence.
Carmouche v. State,
At the pre-trial hearing, deputy sheriff Judd Russell testified he arrived at the scene of a single-vehicle automobile accident at 9:57 p.m. and determined that sufficient damage had occurred to require the prеparation of an accident report. April Michelle Layland was not present, but her husband Walter was. Deputy Russell informed Mr. Layland, “either I could go to his residence and get Ms. Layland or he сould bring her back with her license and insurance.” When Mr. Layland brought his wife back to the scene, the deputy noticed that she was unsteady on her feet and provided Miranda 1 (1) warnings. Deputy Russell testified that Layland was not under arrest at that point. The appellant admitted that she had been driving. Because he smelled alcohol on her breath, the deputy determined that field sobriety tests would be appropriate. She failed the field sobriety tests. The deputy determined that the appellant was intoxicated in public. Russell decided she was a possible danger to herself and others, and took her into custody. While at the jail, Layland admitted that she had been drinking before the accident. She informed the officer that she was trying to kill herself and drove off the road intentionally.
First, Layland argues that her arrest was unlawful and occurred, not when Deputy Russell transported her to the jail, but when her husband contacted her at their house. She argues that Walter Lay-land had been deputized to act as a “posse comitatus.” We find no evidence that the law enforcement officer intended to invest Walter Layland with any authority of a law enforcement officer. Deputy Russell *650 was not suggesting thаt Walter Layland do anything that he was not already authorized to do, that is, communicate with his wife. Layland argues: “The implied threat was that the deputy would go into the house and arrest Appellant if Mr. Lay-land did not bring her back.” Had such a threat been implied, it would have been evident that she would not be under arrest if she came willingly. According to the deputy, the purpose of the encounter was tо prepare an accident report. None of the evidence adduced at the hearing suggests that suspicion of any criminal offense arose before the appellant rеturned to the scene. The trial court could have found that the appellant voluntarily returned to the scene of the accident, and that she was, as Deputy Russell testified, free to leavе until formally taken into custody.
Second, Layland argues that no grounds for a warrantless arrest are present in this case. She also argues that none of the conditions exist for a lawful war-rantless аrrest. Article 14.03 authorizes a warrantless arrest of a person found in a suspicious place and under circumstances which reasonably show that such person has been guilty of a breach of the peace or public intoxication. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann art. 14.03 (Supp.2004). Layland argues that she was home in bed, not in a suspicious place. The circumstances of this case аre similar to those in
Dyar v. State,
Point of error two challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. Layland argues there is insufficient evidence to corrobоrate her admission that she had been drinking before she drove. In conducting a legal sufficiency review, we consider all the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jackson v. Virginia,
Deputy Russell was dispatched at 9:43 p.m. and arrived at the scene fourteen minutes later. Layland’s Toyota Corolla was in a ditch; thе tires were spinning and the motor was still running. Layland’s husband Walter brought her to the deputy a few minutes past 10:00 p.m. Layland had a strong odor of alcohol, her speech was slurred, it was hard for her to talk and her balance was very unsteady. She reported that she left the scene because she was scared. Layland could perform the one-legged stand for only a few seconds, she could not perform the nine-step walk-and-turn or the finger count, and she could not accurately recite the alphabet beyond “F.” Deputy Russell testified that in his opinion the appellant had lost the normal use of her mental and physical faculties due to the consumption of alcohol. When he inventoried the contents of her vehicle, Russell found two small wine bottles, which were full and had cоndensation on them, and a can of beer on the front passenger seat. Breath tests administered to Lay-land at the station gave results of .216 and .229.
Walter Layland testified that his wife had been at an AA meeting until 8:15 p.m. and arrived home around 9:00 p.m. They live a quarter of a mile from where the accident occurred. He testified that Lay-land consumed a large bottle of wine between the time she came home and she returned to the accident scene. He also testified that he took the wine bottles out of the car, that they were not cold to the touch, and he threw them away. Wаlter testified that he does not drink. He also suggested that Layland reported incorrectly because she has difficulty with her sense of time.
One court reviewing an issue of proof of the corpus delicti of driving while intoxicated reasoned, as follows:
Proof of the precise time of an accident or of driving is not the sine qua non of driving while intoxicated. Such proof is in itself not critical, except as it establishes the time during which the fact finder must consider the defendant’s state and determine whether during that episode оf driving the defendant was intoxicated. Thus the critical issue is that there must be proof from which the fact finder can conclude that at the time of the driving in question, whenever that might be, the defendant was intoxiсated, in other words, a “link” between the driving and the intoxication.
Zavala v. State,
In this case, the defendant drove her automobile into a ditch. Even the defense conceded she was heavily intoxicated within an hоur of the latest time she could have been driving. There was alcohol in the vehicle, and it was not her husband’s. Her abandonment of the car while it was still running indicates guilty knowledge. The jury could rationally disregard the evidence that the appellant consumed alcohol after she ceased driving. We hold that the State established the corpus delicti. The jury could rationally find beyond a reasonable doubt that, while intoxicated, the ap *652 pellant operated a motor vehicle in a public place. Point of error two is overruled. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
.
Miranda v. Arizona,