Pilate? Hah! That's too easy a question. If you want a hard one, what about Caiaphas the High Priest?

After all, it's common sense what he says: "It is expedient that one man die for the sake of the country." Here was a blasphemer who was going to get the Jews in trouble yet again, but this time with the inexorable Roman legions. Much better to get him out of the way. Much better to nip this problem in the bud.

The catch for Pilate is, of course, what Stephen himself says: "if an in so far as he believed, in good faith and on reasonable grounds, that what he did was necessary for the preservation of the peace of Palestine..." It is evident even from the limited textual evidence that Pilate did not believe that. What swayed him was the threat of Tiberius Caesar's displeasure. It was for that reason, it seems clear, that he executed the Nazarene.