If you are a white cop who kills a black man, aptly named White Plains is a decent place to work.

Officer Anthony Carelli escaped criminal charges in 2012, when the Westchester County district attorney’s office failed to indict him for the shooting death of Kenneth Chamberlain, a former correction officer and retired Marine. Chamberlain, 68, was killed in his own home after cops arrived in response to a false alarm from his medical alert bracelet.

Now Carelli faces a civil trial.

The good news for him: Only one African-American is in the group of eight jurors to hear the case, and he could end up as an alternate. Of the 45 jurors summoned for selection, only three were black.

Chamberlain's wrongful death suit to have nearly all-white jury

There is nothing unconstitutional about this. One is entitled to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community, not a jury that itself reflects the diversity of the community. But it still tilts the scales toward the police before the trial starts.

Innumerable studies have shown that white people generally believe that black people are more violent and dangerous than whites are. Whites generally have positive encounters with the police; blacks not so much. Whites are far more likely than blacks to assume that cops, because they are cops, are telling the truth.

So Carelli’s story, which appears to be that Chamberlain, after not calling for help, decided to charge at him with a knife, already sounds plausible to white ears. And far too many whites, asked how much force a white cop should be able to use to subdue a black man who might menace them one day, say, “Just do what you need to do.”