This paper explores the records of mental incompetence cases filed at a court of the first instance in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Using a Critical Discourse Analysis framework and qualitative methods, it examines the ways in which mental health sufferers are rendered. Applying Tone Theory and Appraisal Theory to the data, two discursive zones are identified. In one of them, subjects are constructed with linguistic resources that amount to inscribed expressions of negative social judgement on their capacity. A discursive dichotomy is produced whereby people are either competent or incompetent. In the other zone, these negative dichotomous judgements are mostly mitigated by explicitly positive ones, without vanishing altogether. It is proposed that mental incompetence, far from being a dichotomous concept, might be gradual.