I think the jury is going to begin to feel insulted with lies.
By now, they probably are certain that the claim about the stairs was a lie, even if they disregarded or forgot the comment about Prior owning the house. Priors absurd introduction of Melanie Gibb into the narrative is similar to his bizarre insistence that the house has no stairs. They might be thinking, Prior says there were no stairs, and there are. Prior says Melanie Gibb is very important, but there were stairs. So why should we believe him about Melanie Gibb.
Never mind that there are three murders. Melanie Gibb is only a semi-viable introduction of reasonable doubt for one. (And IMO at best the doubt would be that there were actually more than 3 co-conspirators, not that Chad was not one of them. Even with Gibb's involvement, Chad is the leader.) Is Prior going to argue in closing statements that she came to Chads house and googled wind direction on Chad's phone, stayed the night, then texted Tammy about "fun times," on Tylee's burial day?
I do not think Prior is a smart dirty trickster at all. I would not want him on my team even if I wanted someone to play dirty. With the stairs thing, Prior could have had a win impeaching the witness by saying that the bedroom and the office were both on the same level, so Chad wouldn't have said stairs. Instead, that is forgotten, and all that is seared into the juries head is for some reason, Prior wanted the jury to believe the house did not have an upstairs, and that it is not true. Thus, Prior is a liar.
Priors deliberate bumbling of words is probably coming off patronizing and dishonest, too. The jurors know that Prior has been over the evidence longer than they have. They know that if they can learn new words, like lividity, like ward, like bishopric, during testimony, Prior can too, and should have already learned them in preparing. And somehow, his "mistakes" with the words they know he already is familiar with, even if he just learned them for this case, seem to sound like an insult.
Prior did not have a lot to work with in this trial. I don't see how he'd win if he were doing well. But I don't think he is doing well.
MOO