Why would a judge fire a defense atty and hire a ...

Hi,
That can happen only if the judge is convinced that your atty is not doing his job well and he is not giving you a fair chance at court.....  the judge is convinced that for your best interests it will be better to get a public defender.  The judge must have good reasons to reach such a decision.
Best regards,

I saw a judge do the same thing last week. The attorney was from a large city 90 miles away, and the judge stated that it would be very difficult to expedite the case if everyone had to try to schedule around the attorney's extremely heavy criminal case load.

The decision was in the defendant's best interest. The case had had 4 continuances already because the attorney couldn't make the court dates.