Its a thorny question, however the Gospels make it pretty clear that PP was trying to broker a solution with the Pharisees/Sadducee to not execute him, even sending him off to Herod to deal with. However all approaches were rejected, until PP finally just posed the question to the crowd...."Give us Barabbas was the response"

(Note: a very interesting name that "Barabbas" had. In Hebrew, Bar = Son / Abba = Father. So in a sense the crowd was chanting "Give us the Son of the Father"....very curious)