One evening I was walking back to my apartment with several friends from the bar district part of a college town when we were stopped by police officers for questioning. They were responding to a witness report that I and someone else in my group had taken some inexpensive personal property found along the sidewalk of a residence on our way. (We were never charged by the owner of that property, who due to the inexpensive nature of the items (less than $10), declined to press charges and appreciated our coming forward to offer to pay for the property which is, "taken so often, we kinda expect it from time to time".)
Anyways, while being questioned by officers that night, I declined to answer any questions about the property, but openly admitted to having a few drinks with my friends at the bar. The officer then checked my ID, asked for a breathalyzer, of which I politely asked if I needed to comply. He answered no and continued with questioning before administering a Horizontal Gaze Test of which I passed the test fairly well. I likely came off as apprehensive to questioning, but I responded with straight forward answers keeping in mind my rights. The officer then asked me for a second breathalyzer asking me if I was going to "cooperate" this time in a tone that showed his heightened frustration by my 'no comment' responses to questions about the property. I decided to blow, knowing that I wasn't displaying any intoxicating behavior while being over the age of 21 and got around a .12 BAC.
I was then informed I was being arrested for public intoxication, and taken to jail. My friends were let go charge free.
My question is, could I have been wrongfully arrested if the officer failed to observe any intoxicating behavior and charged me with a public intox out of frustration for not being able to charge me with anything else? Or are the property allegations enough to show diminished judgment, even if I wasn't charged with damages? While being processed, one of the officers at the jail commented to me, "you don't seem very intoxicated at all" and "you seem like a cooperative guy". I know in some states, even if you haven't had any alcohol, you can still be guilty of a public intox by acting intoxicated. But what if I have had a few drinks and was not acting intoxicated?

