New York City has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an $18 million verdict against police for the mishandling of a rape kit that delayed a man's exoneration for 12 years.

According to the city's writ of certiorari, filed Wednesday in The City of New York v. Newton, a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit “improperly constitutionalizes broad questions about the storage, tracking and retrieval of evidence from long concluded criminal prosecutions that may now yield exculpatory information due to advances in DNA testing.”

Alan Newton was convicted in 1985, before DNA testing was available or trustworthy, of rape, robbery and assault. Following his first unsuccessful post-conviction motions, the rape kit in the case was misfiled and could not be found.