Why did Rome allow the Jews to stone Stephen?
Rome permitted the stoning because it viewed the matter as an internal Jewish religious affair. The Romans allowed the Jews to handle their own religious system and to punish their own people, whereas a Jew could never have stoned a Gentile under Roman authority. Rome therefore did not intervene.
Les explains that under Roman rule, there was no way a Jew would have gotten away with stoning a Gentile; Rome would never have permitted that. But Stephen’s stoning was a Jewish situation. The Romans let the Jews handle their own religious system, permitting them to kill their own in the name of their own religion, and Rome did not do a thing. Rome never lifted a finger against the Jews carrying out their own means of punishment. Les also notes that in Acts the context has been Jewish—Peter, Peter, Peter, now Stephen—and at Stephen’s stoning Israel reached the crescendo point of her rejection, declaring they would not have this man to rule over them.