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I started looking into this, and the short answer is that it's going to take a bunch of research to figure out how defense counsel are assigned to indigent defendants in that jurisdiction.
From reviewing news articles (for his state case), it appears he could not be assigned someone from the Public Defender because one of their employees was in the crowd. That's a straight forward conflict of interest that would keep the office from taking the case (and also why it's a bad idea for PD employees to attend protests and such).
He was assigned Charles Weber as defense counsel. However, Weber was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Charlottesville trying to prevent the removal of the Robert Lee statue, which is the same thing the Unite the Right rally was ostensibly protesting. This is one of those potential ethical conflicts that crops up whenever an attorney is doing general practice law (including suing local governments) and also getting assigned criminal defense cases as part of an indigent defense contract. At some point, the attorney is going to be suing some part of a government that's also prosecuting one of the attorney's clients.
Weber's situation is probably an ethical conflict, but it's one of those that would appear on a legal exam because it can be argued either way. The interests of the attorney aren't contrary to the client, for example. But he's not acting as an attorney in the lawsuit about the statue, he's a plaintiff. That's maybe a little different for the ethical analysis. If he filed a motion to withdraw due to that conflict, every judge I've ever appeared in front of would grant it. It's too risky and getting the attorney off the case is easier for everyone. I don't know from news reports if Weber asked to be relieved.
The judge deciding on his own to relieve Weber due to a conflict? That would be extremely unusual in my state. The judges leave it to the attorneys to determine any conflicts and it falls on them if they make the wrong call. Maybe in VA it's normal for a judge, on their own, to decide to get involved in addressing a potential conflict without either party raising it. I don't know.
In my state, if one court-appointed attorney is removed, the usual procedure is that it goes back to some office for determination of new counsel. That office hunts around to find some new attorney who can take it. This might be by routine assignment or calling around to say, "hey, there is a big murder case with lots of media attention that needs an attorney. Can you take it?" Once someone says yes, they alert the court and the court issues an order appointing that new attorney. The judge doesn't pick the attorney, but it can look that way because there's a specific order from a judge appointing a named attorney.
If the assignment of court-appointed counsel is anything like that in VA, then that's how the defendant ended up with a new attorney that appears to be of "the court's choosing."
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