Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor slammed her fellow justices for ruling in favor of a Texas state trooper who fatally shot a fleeing suspect in 2010.

According to Sotomayor, the decision, which grants the officer legal immunity, sanctions "a shoot first, think later approach to policing."

The shooting occurred when police pulled over 24-year-old Israel Leija, Jr., who then sped off in his car in order to avoid being arrested. That led to an 18-minute high speed police chase on Interstate 27 in Texas, reports The Guardian. During the chase, Leija repeatedly called police on his cellphone and threatened to shoot any officers if they failed to stop their pursuit.

In order to stop Leija, police set up tire spikes to slow down his vehicle. However, State Trooper Chadrin Mullenix of the Texas Department of Public Safety disregarded his supervisor's order to stand by and instead chose to disable the car by shooting at it. He fired six shots at the car, striking Leija four times who lost control of the vehicle before reaching the spikes.

Following Leija's death, his family filed a lawsuit against Mullenix. The fifth circuit court of appeals ruled that Mullenix violated a policy that forbids a police officer from using "deadly force against a fleeing felon who does not pose a sufficient threat of harm to the officer or others".

But in an 8-to-1 decision on Monday, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court ruling and found the officer was entitled to immunity from lawsuits. In turn, the ruling will likely make it harder to file suits against police who use deadly force in the future.

Sotomayor, on the other hand, wrote a letter of dissent, criticizing the court's decision for setting a bad precedent.

"By sanctioning a 'shoot first, think later' approach to policing, the Court renders protections of the Fourth Amendment hollow," the Justice wrote.

She added that Mullenix "fired six rounds in the dark at a car traveling 85 miles per hour. He did so without any training in that tactic, against the wait order of his superior officers, and less than a second before the car hit spike strips deployed to stop it."

Sotomayor also argued instead that "any reasonable officer could not have thought that shooting would stop the car with less danger or greater certainty than waiting."

The majority also wrote an opinion, saying "In this case, Mullenix confronted a reportedly intoxicated fugitive, set on avoiding capture through high-speed vehicular flight, who twice during his flight had threatened to shoot police officers, and who was moments away from encountering an officer," they wrote, reports NBC News.