Biography
Phoenix Feeley (legal name Jill Coccaro) is a New York City-based artist and fire-eating performer who was arrested twice in June 2008 at Salem Avenue Beach in Spring Lake, New Jersey, for topless sunbathing in violation of a local public nudity ordinance. An advocate for gender equality, Feeley challenged the discriminatory enforcement of laws that permit men — but not women — to bare their torsos in public. She had previously won a 2007 civil rights lawsuit in New York City after a wrongful topless sunbathing arrest there. After the New Jersey Supreme Court declined to hear her appeal, Feeley filed a petition directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Rather than pay an $861 fine, she chose to serve 12 days in jail in August 2013, during which she conducted a hunger strike to protest conditions at the facility.
